


















































































THE WAKE OF 
THE SETTING SUN 


WILLIAM AVERILL STOWELL 











"it’s too far,” he muttered. 


[page 238] 




' 

The Wake Of 
The Setting Sun 

BY 

WILLIAM AVERILL STOWELL 

il 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK :: 1923 :: LONDON 











\ 


COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 




Copyright, 19 22 , by Doubleday Page & Company 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Where the West Begins . 

:* 

PAGE 

9 

II. 

Down Grade . . 


16 

III. 

The Daughter of the de 
Guerras. 

LA 

22 

IV. 

When the Limited Pulled 

IN 

33 

Y. 

Down the Harbor . 

♦ 

44 

VI. 

The Chase towards the Sun 

• 1 

54 

VII. 

Out of the Frying Pan . 


69 

VIII. 

Corona del Mar .... 

• • 

83 

IX. 

The Hacienda .... 

• 

95 

X. 

The Whispered Whistle . 

• 

109 

XI. 

A Blow from the Unknown 

• 

118 

XII. 

Dr. Lethbridge Makes an Unex¬ 
pected Diagnosis .... 

129 

XIII. 

A Piece of Fishline . . 

• 

141 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTBK 


B. G. 


XIV. 

XY. The Quarrel in the Dining 
Room. 

XVI. In the Shadow of the Giants . 

XVII. The Red Memorandum . . 

XVIII. The Owner of the Fishline . 

XIX. The Attack in the Dark . 

XX. Gone . . .. 

XXI. Bad Blood. 

XXII. The Cuff on the Flagstones . 

XXIII. The End of a Blind Trail . 

XXIV. The Painted Cave .... 

XXV. Shot through the Wall . 

XXVI. The Climb to the Sun . . 

XXVII. The Race for the Tar Field . 

XXVIII. The Fight in the Canon . 

XXIX. The Fate of a Desperate 

Chance. 


XXX. The Wake of the Setting Sun 


PA GX 

149 

157 

171 

179 

185 

194 

199 

207 

224 

229 

240 

248 

259 

274 

283 

292 

299 













Out where the skies are a trifle bluer, 

Out where friendship’s a little truer, 

That’s where the West begins. 

Out where a fresher breeze is blowing, 

Where there’s laughter in every streamlet 
flowing, 

Where there’s more of reaping and less of 
sowing, 

That’s where the West begins . 

Arthur Chapman 



THE WAKE OF 
THE SETTING SUN 


CHAPTER I 

WHERE THE WEST BEGINS 

L OWER TWELVE gave a grunt of relief 
when, after breakfast, “they” trooped 
out on the platform. Not that Lower 
Twelve was neurasthenic or even oversensitive; 
only, after all, a Pullman crammed with per¬ 
sonally conducted schoolma’ams was not what 
a Just Providence should have inflicted on six 
feet of rugged, world-hardened man. By 
night, their whisperings and suppressed gig¬ 
gles had irritated his habitually peaceful slum¬ 
bers ; while, by day, the train despatcher voice 
of their guide had blurred the memories of days 
gone by, when prairie schooners creaked along 
the winding western trails and Indian braves 
were more than local color spread over the sta- 

9 


TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


tion platforms by an enterprising railroad com¬ 
pany. 

As the powerful engine, with a sympathetic 
snort, shook itself and continued on its long 
pull to the Pacific, Lethbridge sprawled his wiry 
muscular frame over the entire section of the 
now deserted car. 

Above the shimmering desert that swept 
away to the brown scarred mountains on the 
horizon, a haze of purple hung. Gradually the 
rumble, rumble of the wheels soothed his senses 
and, for he knew not for how long, he lay with 
half-seeing eyes, contentedly dreaming of his 
journey’s end and of his chum Bill Lawton 
awaiting him at San Diego for a month’s deep- 
sea fishing. 

With an upward jerk of his head, Lethbridge 
straightened himself in his seat, ran his hand 
through his curly brown hair, and rubbed his 
eyes into a consciousness of his surroundings. 
Evidently he had been dozing for some time for 
the atmosphere was soaked with heat. Feel¬ 
ing in his pocket for his pipe, he arose, stretched 
himself and wandered back between the seats. 
As he came out on to the platform, he gave an 

10 




WHERE THE WEST BEGINS 


exclamation of disappointment. Instead of his 
car being at the end of the train, another Pull¬ 
man had been switched on at the last station 
and a chain across its vestibule barred his fur¬ 
ther progress. With a shrug of his shoulders, 
he undid the obstruction, then carefully re¬ 
placed the hook and went on back through the 
car. Evidently it was an observation Pullman, 
quite deserted, probably some “empty” picked 
up back there for hauling to the terminal. 
Hurrying through the stifling salon, Lethbridge 
unfastened the rear door and stepped out on 
the observation platform. While sizzling, the 
air outside was fresh, full of the ozone of the 
desert, and the sand, whirled up by the suction 
of the onrushing train, seethed by without find¬ 
ing its way around the sides. 

Lurching into a camp chair, he installed his 
feet against the brass railing and puffed con¬ 
tentedly at his beloved brier. After all, it was 
a relief to be free from the grind of the labora¬ 
tory, the first vacation since his appointment 
as research director of the great New York hos¬ 
pital. Away to the jagged, purple mountains 
on the horizon stretched the broken expanse 

11 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


of sand, streaked with red and ocher, daubed 
with grayish green, covered with a yellow veil 
of dust and sunbeams that softened its rugged 
outlines and cast a spell of mystery over the 
dissolving distances. No sound arose to relieve 
the terrifying quiet of this lonely land, like the 
grim, deserted landscape of a dying world or 
the silent surface of the earth before the begin¬ 
ning of things. Lulled by the rhythmical click, 
click of the swiftly receding rails, Lethbridge 
was again slipping into semidreaminess when 
he was recalled to a sense of reality by the rusty 
squeak of the heavy door and the sudden ap¬ 
pearance beside him of a young woman. For 
a moment the newcomer hesitated, bracing her¬ 
self against the sharp swaying of the train, 
perhaps sensing the disconsolate opposition to 
her presence on the part of the serious, firm- 
jawed man in the corner. Then, with a slight 
toss of a mutinous head, she sank into the camp 
chair on the opposite side of the platform, per¬ 
formed the sacred feminine rite of adjusting 
her skirts, and settled back with a little sigh 
of content to enjoy the grandeur of the narrow 
gorge up which the train was now crawling. 

12 




WHERE THE WEST BEGINS 


With a resentful rap, the doctor emptied his 
pipe over the railing, pulled down the visor of 
his cap and prepared to relinquish possession 
to the intruder who, like himself, had evidently 
disregarded the chain. The thought of the dust- 
filled heat within caused him, however, to settle 
back again grumblingly in his seat. Where 
could this woman have come from? Probably 
from the Pullman ahead, for his car had been 
absolutely empty since leaving the last stop. 
Obviously she was not one of the schoolma’ams. 
A nonchalant and indifferent glance brought 
certainty that no Kansas school board would 
ever have passed the striking, foreign-looking 
girl opposite. Unconsciously Lethbridge set 
himself for the usual remark about the scenery 
that he knew would presently be thrown at him, 
an opening to a silly, boring conversation not 
easily choked off. An unbroken silence of a 
quarter of an hour made him shift uneasily in 
his seat. Something was wrong. There came 
to his mind a play he had once seen, The Man 
Who Married a Dumb Wife. Yes, but then 
such things only happened in plays. Casually, 
with a purely psychological interest, he studied 

13 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


more closely the girl opposite, who sat in genu¬ 
ine obliviousness of his existence and was evi¬ 
dently really absorbed in the towering cliff 
walls of the canon and in the rocky river bed 
falling away far below. 

His professional eye was forced to admit that 
she was a splendid type. Above medium 
height, her resilient, supple figure suggested the 
lithe grace of a pantheress; while the finely 
molded oval face, the massive soft hair coiled 
above the coral-pink ears, the eyes warm brown 
with streaks of beaten gold, all confirmed Dr. 
Lethbridge’s first impression that the woman 
opposite was a dangerous specimen of a much 
to-be-avoided sex. 

The train was still slowly crawling up the 
narrow, winding defile between the mountains, 
through which the river had gnawed its passage 
to the sea. Up the steep grade the straining 
engine struggled, gasping like an old wind- 
broken horse as the wheels slipped their footing 
and spun round in a mad whirl. The track 
crawled and wound around the precipitous 
cliffs of the canon, which rose on the left in a 
jagged line to the rim and on the right fell sheer 

14 




WHERE THE WEST BEGINS 


into the bouldered river bed below. Gradually 
the light, previously obscured by the towering 
cliffs, grew brighter and the engine with a pant 
of relief reached the top of the divide and ran 
out into the sunshine of the summit. Suddenly, 
with a slight jerk, Lethbridge perceived that 
the train had gradually slackened its speed, then 
stopped quite still, then had begun to glide 
gently backward. Bising to his feet, he peered 
around the corner of the platform. Two hun¬ 
dred yards up the track the rear end of the train 
was disappearing over the brow of the ridge, 
while their observation Pullman, broken loose 
from the main body of the train, was smoothly 
slipping backwards down the grade. 




CHAPTER II 


DOWN GRADE 

HE air was still, blanketed under the 
crushing silence of the sultry noon. 
From far below floated the echo of the 
canon softened by the great height into a sooth¬ 
ing, musical murmur. For a flash Lethbridge 
stood undecided. Then, slamming open the 
screen door, he dashed back through the car. 
The atmosphere inside was oppressive. Around 
the edges of the drawn shades wavering shafts 
of sunlight filtered through in dust-filled paths. 
As he ran between the deserted sections his 
steps sounded hollow and dulled. Bursting out 
on what was now the rear platform, he brought 
up short, gripping the sides to keep from pitch¬ 
ing head first out on to the receding track. Evi¬ 
dently the Pullman was quite deserted. Turn¬ 
ing, he was starting back, when he hesitated, 
wavered a moment, then straddled the rear rail¬ 
ing and crouched to spring. After all, a broken 

16 



DOWN GRADE 


leg was to be preferred to a journey in this 
runaway car, now rocking jerkily as it shot 
faster down the rails. 

His fingers were loosening their grasp, he was 
swinging out on to the flying ties, when there 
came to him the thought of the girl on the plat¬ 
form ahead. Struggling to get his balance, his 
fingers gripped the cold steel bar and, with 
a muttered exclamation, he vaulted the low rail¬ 
ing and started forward. 

. Clutching the backs of the seats, pitched from 
side to side, he fought his way up the narrow 
aisle. Half across the writing salon, he was 
slammed against the desk with a force that made 
him strangle. He could see the girl outside 
frantically pulling on the handle of the heavy 
door. Evidently the snap had sprung when he 
had slammed it on his way forward. Crawling 
to his knees, he slipped the catch, rose, and 
lurched out on to the observation platform. As 
the girl stood back, a shadow of relief, of grati¬ 
tude passed across her eyes. Holding to the 
railing, Lethbridge bent over her. 

‘ 1 We >re alone on this car! ’’ he shouted. 4 ‘ It ’s 
broken away from the rest of the train !” 

17 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


His words were stifled by the rush of the wind 
and he wondered if she had heard. She was 
looking to the left now, over the sheer granite 
wall, down to where the river bed lay white in 
the silent distance. Suddenly she turned to him 
and her lips moved; but no sound came to his 
ears, for, as she spoke, the car struck a sharp 
curve where the canon bore left and they were 
hurled in a heap into the opposite corner of the 
platform. A hissing, a ripping creak of strained 
bolts; the Pullman swayed, staggered, held the 
rails by a miracle, and shot out on to a half mile 
of track that fell away straight before them. 

With a struggle the man raised himself and 
helped his companion to her knees. As he 
braced himself, he drew in his breath sharply 
between his teeth and pointed ahead. At the 
end of the straight half mile the rails, clamped 
like a scatfolding, crawled to the right around 
the sharp elbow of the canon wall. Following 
his gesture, the girl turned gravely to him, gave 
a quaint shrug of her shoulders, then looked 
straight ahead. The car was running smoothly 
now, clipping over the rails with the rhythm of 
a well-oiled reel. To the man it recalled his 

18 




DOWN GRADE 


boyhood when he had run a stick rapidly along 
the pales of a fence. All at once he felt a hand 
grip his arm. 

“Oh, senor!” the voice sounded tense, 
strained. “Is there nothing we can do?” 

Her words seemed to whip his numbed facul¬ 
ties into action, to make him see for the first 
time the long brass brake lever thrown back 
against the railing. With a muttered exclama¬ 
tion of disgust at himself, he reached forward 
and gripped the handle. 

Squaring his shoulders, he gradually pulled 
the bar. Somewhere beneath, the clamps whis¬ 
tled shrilly as they brushed the wheels. But 
such gentle pressure could not check their 
whirling. Leaning far back, the man threw 
against the brake-beam all his strength. Under 
his pongee coat the knotted muscles bulged in 
bunches and the cords of his neck showed in 
bluish lines beneath the turkey-red skin. There 
was a jerky bumping, a sputtering of sparks, 
the pungent smell of burning steel. 

‘ ‘ Thank God! ” he gasped hoarsely. ‘ ‘ They ’re 
holding ! 91 

As he spoke, something snapped and he was 

19 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


thrown heavily against the door. The brake- 
chain had broken and the great car, with a burst 
of joyous freedom, leapt forward down the 
track. The rim was but a hundred yards ahead 
now, pitching off sheer where the road bent 
round the cliff. On the right the granite walls 
flew by with the dull, hollow roar of an ap¬ 
proaching hurricane. On the left, down in the 
gloom of the great gorge, dull gray boulders 
stuck upward their hungry heads. Bleeding 
from a cut over his eye, Lethbridge staggered 
to his feet; then stooped beside the huddled 
figure in the corner. 

“It's our only chance!” he shouted. 

Her arms clung to his neck with a tense force 
that almost choked him. He could feel her 
breath coming in quick gasps. Then, as he 
straddled the rail and crouched to jump, her 
grip grew laxer and to his ear came the words 
of the old Spanish prayer: 

‘ ‘ Holy Mary Mother, help us! ’ 9 
With a smash of ripping steel the Pullman 
struck the curve and shot straight out across 
the canon. First twisting in a gentle spiral, 
then hurtling over and over, it fell and fell; 

20 



DOWN GRADE 


until from up out of the great depths came a 
faint, shattering crash as it struck on the rocks 
below. But as the long, black mass pitched into 
space, the man had gripped his burden tightly 
and jumped. For a moment there flowed 
through him an exhilarating sense of detach¬ 
ment, of carefree soaring through the soft air; 
then, a stabbing pain, a numbing ringing of 
distant bells, a myriad of flashing motes of 
light; then, darkness, the blackness of oblivion. 




CHAPTER III 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE DE LA GUERRAS 


T O the man on the sofa of the drawing¬ 
room came a monotonous drumming as of 
a bevy of partridges, carried from afar 
on a clear, crisp winter’s morning; a sensation 
of being wafted hither and fro like a wisp of 
thistle on a fitful summer’s breeze; a tumbling 
froth of half-seen images whirling past the 
screen of clouded consciousness; then, as the 
focus became sharper, the impression of a rope 
overhead swaying back and forth, of a worker 
in hammered brass beating with steady strokes 
upon his throbbing head. From a distance came 
the strident hoot of a locomotive. The steady 
rumble of the train was lulling him to sleep but 
for that accursed metal-worker chiseling out 
his brain. If he would only stop! With a groan 
the man raised his hand to push away the dis¬ 
turber. Something warm and soft gripped his 

22 


DAUGHTER OF THE DE LA GUERRAS 


wrists and from afar, so far, came the words: 
“Please, senor, yon must lie still!” 

Where had he heard that voice? Slowly 
opening his eyes, Lethbridge fought to seize 
again connection with reality. Surely he had 
seen those eyes whose dark pupils streaked with 
gold were looking through a veil of mist. Why 
was she crying, this girl holding his wrists to 
his sides ? Oh yes! He had it now! The crash! 
Yes, this was the girl! How stupid not to re¬ 
member ! He must have been hurt! That was 
why his head pounded so! With a sigh Leth¬ 
bridge lay back exhausted. Again from far 
away came the same soft, foreign voice with a 
break in its melody. 

“ Oh! Conductor! He has come back to us. 
Thank God he has come back! ’ ’ 

Then a gruff, kindly growl: 

“There now, miss, of course he has! You 
can’t squash the life out of a young feller like 
that, even with what you two went through. ’ ’ 

A minute, an hour, he must have dozed again. 
The girl was still there; the conductor had gone. 
His brain was clear now. He tried to raise 
himself on his elbow. Wincing, he lay back 

23 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


once more. It must have been a sharp knock. 
Opening his eyes, he smiled faintly up into the 
anxious face leaning over him: 

“Don’t worry!” he said. “I’ll be all right 
in a minute. ’ ’ 

“But you must lie still! Really, my senor, 
you must! ’ ’ 

For a time he lay on his back, motionless, fol¬ 
lowing the swinging bell rope. Finally he 
raised his head on the pillow: 

‘ 1 Please! ” he said. ‘ 1 Tell me what happened! 
I don’t remember anything after we jumped.” 

“Then rest back, so.” She carefully ar¬ 
ranged the pillow and her firm fingers lowered 
his head against its soft cushion. 

“Well, the conductor who was here just now 
said that that observation car had been in a 
wreck a few days ago and had broken its coupler 
and air-brakes. At a station we came to last 
night, they had patched up the coupler and had 
hitched the car to our train to haul to the shops 
to be repaired. But they could not fix the air¬ 
brake, and, when the coupler again broke going 
up that terrible canon, the car just slipped down 
the grade. The conductor blames us for going 

24 


DAUGHTER OF THE DE LA GUERRAS 


into it, as the chain was put across to keep 
people out.’ ’ 

“What happened when we jumped V 1 Alan 
asked. 

“We struck some soft sand beside the track 
that the conductor said was put there to fix the 
roadbed. Only, your head hit a small stone and 
it made you go to sleep.” 

‘ i How long have I been unconscious ? 9 9 

“A long time. We have just started again.” 

“How about yourself? Weren’t you hurt?” 

“Not much, for I fell on you. Just shaken a 
little, so that I too knew not where I was and 
woke up just as the train backed down and they 
were carrying me into this stateroom which is 
mine . 9 9 

“Did the car go over into the river?” 

“Yes! As they carried me along the track I 
could see it lying ’way down in that canon. It 
was horrible, and please let us forget it. Only I 
shall not forget, senor, what you have done for 
me.” And, taking his hand in both her own, 
the girl lightly brushed it with her lips. 

“Please!” Alan sat bolt upright, his face 


crimson. 


25 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“But, senor,” she looked at him in surprise. 
“I was just trying to show you that I give you 
thanks for what you did for me. For is it not 
because of you that I am here?” 

Alan bit his lip. Why had he been such a 
boor? As she sat with her eyes lowered, busied 
with soaking in a pail of ice water the towel for 
his head, he tried to catch sight of her face. 
Perhaps it was imagination, but was not her 
mouth twitching as though some invisible sprite 
was drawing a straw around its corners? Evi¬ 
dently the girl was laughing at him. 

“You are very kind to do all this for me,” 
he said gruffly, “but I can fix things now myself. 
Really, I feel much better.” 

The golden streaks flashed under the long 
lashes as she held her head to one side to survey 
her work. Then, making her face solemn, she 
bent forward: 

“You must know, my friend,” she declared 
impressively, “that I have promised to bathe 
your head every half-hour. And, even though 
you do not wish me here, I must keep my prom¬ 
ise. Not so?” 

For a while the man lay back on the pillow, 

26 




DAUGHTER OF THE DE LA GUERRAS 


his eyes closed, stealing now and then through 
furtively opened lids a glance at the girl by his 
side. Her head was turned from him and his 
gaze kept seeking the soft curve of the back of 
her neck where it joined the hair in a sweeping, 
graceful line. So close she was to him that the 
warm breeze coming through the open window 
carried to his nostrils the delicious perfume of 
her self, subtle, mysterious. At six she went 
ahead to the diner, promising to bring him back 
his supper. He heaved a sigh of relief to get 
her out of the way, sneaked out his tobacco 
pouch and prepared to enjoy a moment of soli¬ 
tary peace. Somehow, although his head was 
better, his pipe did not taste just as it usually 
did and his eyes kept constantly glancing at the 
stateroom door. "Where was the girl? Why 
didn’t she come? Women were as hard to know 
as melons, anyway, and this one was probably 
dawdling over her meal just to aggravate him. 
By the time a half hour had dragged away, he 
had worked himself into a state of sulky neglect 
and was thinking of some especially cutting re¬ 
mark when, of a sudden, she appeared in the 
doorway with a tray of eggs and toast and tea. 

27 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Her coming thawed the icy sarcasm he had so 
carefully prepared, and he grunted his appre¬ 
ciation and moved over by the window. When 
she had arranged the pillow behind his back, 
salted and peppered his eggs, and discovered 
that he took two lumps and cream, she settled 
herself in the seat facing him, rested her arm 
on the window sill and smiled, half whimsically, 
into his eyes. The spoonful of egg stopped still, 
poised dangerously in mid-air: 

“You’ve been very kind to do all this,” he 
stumbled, “and I appreciate it, really I do, and 
I—I ” 

The girl gave a gasp and pointed: 

“Be careful!” she warned. “You are spill¬ 
ing the egg all before your napkin. Really, my 
friend, if you cannot do better than that I shall 
have to feed you.” 

“But I do appreciate it,” Alan continued 
lamely, “and, please, won't you tell me who you 
are? For you are doing all this for me and I 
don't even know your name.” 

“How dreadful!” the girl laughed. “You 
see, I have the advantage, for we found out 

28 





DAUGHTER OF THE HE LA GUERRAS 


about you from the letters in your pocket. Still, 
we must be introduced, must we not?” 

Rising, she courtesied: 

4 ‘Allow me, Dr. Lethbridge,” she said, smil¬ 
ing down at him, “to present you to Paloma de 
la Guerra of Corona del Mar.” 

“And where, may I ask, is Corona del Mar?” 

“What, you do not know?” She raised her 
eyebrows in mock surprise. “But there! I 
give you pardon, senor, for it is not where trav¬ 
elers go. Know, then, that Corona del Mar is 
an island that lies out in the Pacific about forty 
miles southwest of San Diego.” 

“Is it a part of Mexico?” Alan asked. 

“Yes. It is attached to the state of Baja 
California, although no official lives on the 
island and our only connection with the govern¬ 
ment is to send in our yearly taxes.” 

“But you do not seem like a Mexican girl!” 
Alan looked at her closely. 

Paloma laughed at his frank scrutiny. 

“I suppose you mean that for a compliment, 
not so? For they are dreadfully fat, are they 
not, and they have such big feet. Oh, no! I 
am not Mexican. For, although the de la Guer- 

29 





TEE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


ras came to Corona del Mar long, long ago, it 
has always been the strict rule in our family 
that the children should marry in Spain.” 

“But how did your people ever come to settle 
on an island out in the Pacific?” 

“Well, in the days of the Spanish Conquests, 
the ancestor of our family, Comandador de la 
Guerra, was one of the first white men to rest 
his eyes on this portion of America. He was 
from Granada, where our family still holds 
sheep lands under the crown; and, as he was a 
younger son, he took service with the King and 
was one of the officers who led the expedition 
that carried the Spanish flag up this western 
coast of Mexico. He was ten years in the army, 
and then he received permission to retire and 
settle down in the new country. And when the 
King offered him a grant of land, he asked for 
this island off the coast of Baja California.” 

“But what did he want of such a place?” 

“I fear the fishing was good, and then he saw 
that it was well suited for sheep raising, in 
which, as a boy, he had been trained. ’’ 

“Were there sheep already on the island?” 

“Oh, no! He brought out from Spain not 

30 




DAUGHTER OF THE HE LA GUERRAS 


only the sheep, but some of our own herders 
and their families.” 

“If you have no brothers and sisters isn’t it 
lonesome for you without young people of your 
own class?” 

“When I was a child I played with the herd¬ 
ers ’ children. Since I have grown up, my edu¬ 
cation has naturally separated me from them. 
Still, I cannot say I have been lonely. My 
duenna, whom I call my aunt, is a dear old 
Madrid lady who has cared for me and taught 
me as if she were my dead mother, and my 
father and I have always been great friends. 
Then there is a cousin. Oh no! senor, I have 
not been lonely and I can hardly wait for my 
journey to end so that I may ride once again 
on our trails towards the setting sun.” 

“Have you been East long?” Alan inquired. 

“Last winter Dona Mencia, my duenna, 
thought it best for me to see something of the 
world and, as it was impossible to go abroad, 
father arranged to have me spend the winter 
with a relative of the family who married a 
New York man.” 

“You are on your way home now?” 

31 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Yes. Last Tuesday my cousin received 
word that her husband, who is a civil engineer, 
had been seriously hurt down in North Caro¬ 
lina and she left in haste that afternoon. As I 
was returning next month anyway, and as I 
did not wish to live in that big dirty city alone, 
I packed my things, telegraphed father to meet 
me at San Diego, and, so you see, here I am.” 

All through the long evening, the train 
crawled again through the mountains. In the 
sultry heat of the stifling car the girl stuck to 
her promised task, bathing the wounded head, 
soothing her restless patient with the melody of 
her soft, rich voice. 

Far into the deep blue night they talked, 
while Alan, usually constrained, let slip the 
catch of his reserve and told of himself and the 
purpose of his journey. It was late when she 
had given him her hand and bade him pleasant 
dreams. It was long before, tossing from side 
to side in his section, he had dropped into a 
sleep in which plunging Pullmans and eyes of 
liquid gold were mixed in strange confusion. 




CHAPTER IV 


WHEN THE LIMITED PULLED IN 


A T six the following morning Alan was 
shaken from his dreams by the porter, 
who informed him that they would be 
in San Diego in half an hour. With sore muscles 
and a bruised head as the sole reminder of the 
day just passed, he dressed quickly and installed 
himself in a vacant section, his eyes focused on 
the stateroom door. As he watched for the 
turning of the knob, his heart thumped noisily. 
Evidently he needed his breakfast. What was 
delaying the girl anyway? Why were women 
always late? It was only when the train, with 
a creaking of brakes and a sigh of escaping 
steam, slowly pulled into the station that she 
finally stood framed in the doorway, the blush 
of sleep upon her cheeks. 

“Good day, Senor Doctor.” She held out 
her hand with a smile. “How is the hurt head 
this morning?” 


33 



THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Yes, thank you!” Alan stammered; then 
colored crimson and pressed her hand with a 
grip that made her wince. Quizzically she tilted 
her head sidewise at him, a shadow of surprise 
veiling her eyes. Then, with an almost imper¬ 
ceptible raising of the corners of her lips and a 
slight sniff of her delicately chiseled nose, she 
passed along the narrow corridor. At the door 
she turned: 

“My father will be waiting,” she flung back. 
“And I beg to you that you come and meet him 
and permit him to give you thanks for what you 
have done for his daughter.” 

As they stepped from the car into the cold, 
stimulating air of a foggy morning, Paloma 
eagerly scanned the platform, deserted but for 
a few employees, some sleepy hotel runners and 
the passengers from their train dribbling across 
the tracks into the station. 

‘ ‘ Come! ’’ the girl exclaimed, glancing up and 
down. “Where is father?” 

Gradually the crowd melted away, Alan re¬ 
lieved the porter of his companion’s bag, and a 
switch engine bumped into the train to back it 
into the yards. 


34 





WHEN THE LIMITED PULLED IN 


“It is strange!” slie declared, as they stood 
alone on the deserted platform. “I cannot un¬ 
derstand at all. If you only knew my father. 
Nothing would stop his being here or sending 
Bart, our foreman, or some of the men.” 

“Perhaps he didn’t get your wire,” Alan sug¬ 
gested. 

“He must have received it. The Acapulco 
always leaves San Diego Saturdays and Satur¬ 
day was day before yesterday. And from New 
York last Wednesday, I sent two telegrams: one 
to father to be forwarded by mail; the other to 
our friend, Captain Tanner of the Acapulco .” 

“We might go to the telegraph office,” Alan 
started across the tracks. “We can find out 
there whether the messages came through and 
if they were delivered.” 

From behind the desk, his hand on his click¬ 
ing instrument, the coatless operator nodded a 
friendly greeting to Paloma. 

“Why, sure, Miss de la Guerra,” he ex¬ 
plained. “Your telegrams came through all 
right and I mailed one to your pa and gave 
the other myself to Captain Tanner.” 

35 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


4 ‘Do yon know if the Acapulco sailed Satur¬ 
day ?” she inquired. 

“Yes, for it was my day off and I was fishing 
out by Point Loma when she went by.’ 9 

“Perhaps your father’s launch broke down 
or something,” Alan suggested. “Anyway,” 
he added, “I think w^e had better go along to the 
restaurant, get some breakfast and then walk 
down to the dock. Perhaps by that time your 
boat will be in. ’ ’ 

“You do not understand,” the girl said, as 
they proceeded along the station arcade. * ‘ Co¬ 
rona del Mar lies almost forty miles out to sea 
and our launch takes at least four hours to make 
the trip. Father would not wait until this morn¬ 
ing to have started. He or Bart would have 
come over yesterday. Really, my friend, I am 
afraid that something has happened.” 

1 ‘ Don’t worry! ’ ’ Alan reassured her. ‘ i I tell 
you what I ’ll do. You wait here a minute while 
I telephone the Eastman people to have the 
power-boat they are renting Lawton and me at 
the dock at once. They were expecting me to 
arrive last night and we were planning to start 
this morning anyhow. And if, by the time we 

36 




WHEN THE LIMITED PULLED IN 


have finished our breakfast and reached the 
dock, there is no sign of your launch, I will run 

you out myself, and-” 

“Oh no, Senor Lethbridge ,’ 9 she interrupted 
earnestly, “I could not let you do that. Think 
of your friend who is waiting for you at the 
hotel . 9 9 

‘‘ Hang Lawton ! 9 9 Alan burst out. “ I ’ll tele¬ 
phone him to fuss a few of his lady friends over 
at Coronado until I get back to-night. ’ ’ 

“Oh! Dr. Lethbridge, it is impossible-” 

But Alan had dived into a booth and was 
frantically agitating the lever and slipping 
nickels in the slot. When, a few minutes later, 
he emerged, his face was puckered into a broad 
grin 

“Bill is furious,” he chuckled. “I forgot it 
was only half-past six and I woke the lamb-pie 
out of a sound sleep.” 

As they walked along the platform to the 
dining room, Paloma put her hand gently on her 
companion’s arm, and, from under her hat, 
looked up into his face. 

“My friend,” she questioned, “tell me, 
please, why are you so good to me?” 

37 







TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


At the touch of her glove, Alan quivered like 
a sensitive horse. 

“Why, I guess—why, I am not good—I— 

t 

come let’s have breakfast.” And, seizing her 
by the arm, he shoved her roughly through the 
swinging screen door into the restaurant. 

‘ 1 There now!’ ’ he said gruffly, seating himself 
opposite her. “What do you want?” 

As the waitress, with a cynical bride and 
groom appraisal, called the young couple’s 
order through the window, Paloma, her black 
pupils half-serious, half-mocking, looked fixedly 
at the tall man before her. 

“Senor Lethbridge,” she declared emphat¬ 
ically, a flood of blood tingeing the transparent 
ivory of her skin, “you are very rude. But 
somehow, you know, I think I like you just the 
same. ’ ’ 

Breakfast finished, Alan assisted his compan¬ 
ion with her coat and, picking up the suitcases, 
bumped through the swinging doors and fol¬ 
lowed her out to the platform. Over the station 
yard, the fog was settling gently and the big- 
bellied switch engine was belching gulps of 
white steam into the leaking air. A few yards 

38 




WHEN THE LIMITED PULLED IN 


along, outside the telegraph office, two figures 
were standing, peering anxiously up and down 
the tracks. They were large, square-built men 
and the whites of their eyes stood out against 
their mud-colored skins. The leader had a long 
gash that extended from the corner of his mouth 
to his ear, giving to his face a leering grin. As 
Alan and Paloma appeared in the doorway, he 
gave a start, muttered something to his compan¬ 
ion, and came quickly forward. The girl hesi¬ 
tated a moment; then advanced to meet him. 
Bowing low, twirling his huge sombrero in his 
great pudgy hands, the man addressed her re¬ 
spectfully in Spanish. Talking excitedly, he 
kept turning to his fellow, who had joined him, 
and the pair nodded vigorously to accompany 
the speaker’s remarks. 

Presently, Paloma turned back to where Alan 
was standing, an interested observer of this ani¬ 
mated conversation. 

“He is one of our men,” she explained, smil¬ 
ing at the expression on the doctor’s face as he 
eyed the long horse pistol but imperfectly con¬ 
cealed beneath the greasy leather coat of the 
newcomer. ‘ ‘ Father was detained on the island 

39 





TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


on account of important business and he has 
sent these gentlemen to bring me over. They 
were here yesterday, but they told them that 
our train wouldn’t be in till seven.” 

‘ 4 Good Lord! You aren’t going to trust 
yourself to that pair of cutthroats,” Alan ex¬ 
postulated in an undertone, taking in the mur¬ 
derous-looking knife peering nonchalantly from 
the belt of the second Mexican. 

i ‘They have the souls of lambs,” the girl 
laughed. “You must know that my people are 
much more primitive than your Easterners and 
they do not follow the fashions of Broadway.” 

“Just the same, I wish you’d let me take 
you out in my boat,” Alan persisted. “The 
Albatross is all ready at the dock and Bill has 
probably dropped off to sleep again by this time 
and won’t care if I show up or not.” 

“But you are quite absurd,” the girl replied. 
“You don’t for a minute suppose that my father 
would send to meet me men whom he did not 
trust.” 

“Do you know them!” the doctor questioned, 
still unconvinced. 

“They are not the men who used to run the 

40 




WHEN THE LIMITED PULLED IN 


launch,” Paloma admitted. “But father Wrote 
me that Pedro had died and that his son was 
working at the ranch house; and these are cer¬ 
tainly the men whom he has engaged to take 
their places.’’ 

“But look at that fellow’s face,” Alan in¬ 
sisted. 

“I’ll admit it is not my ideal.” The girl 
burst into a merry laugh. “But then, what 
will you? Apollo would probably have made a 
miserable engineer. However, since you take 
so much stock in good looks you must surely 
come to Corona del Mar. For our Granadians 
are really a tine-looking set of men. Only, as 
they know of nothing but sheep, we have to im¬ 
port our mechanics from the mainland.” 

And, before the doctor could protest further, 
she had turned again to the two subjects of the 
discussion who, innocent of the controversy 
their appearance was causing, were stolidly fol¬ 
lowing the difficulties of the portly switch 
engine. In response to some directions given in 
Spanish, the man with the scar took the trunk 
check she held out and disappeared in the direc¬ 
tion of the baggage-room; while his companion 

41 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


unceremoniously seized the suitcase from the 
reluctant grip of the protesting doctor. 

“Don’t worry, please!” Paloma placed her 
hand soothingly on Lethbridge’s arm and pulled 
him gently along the platform. “For while I 
cannot accept your offer this morning, I will 
surely go in your boat when you visit us. You 
must promise to do that, my friend. For the 
hunting is splendid and my father will so wish 
to thank you for what you did for me yesterday. 
He will think it unpardonable if you do not 
come.” 

“But what will his daughter think?” Alan 
answered, his thoughts driven topsy-turvy by 
the soft pressure on his sleeve. 

11 She thinks that somebody she knows is some¬ 
what of a spoiled bear.” She looked straight 
ahead. “But, bad as he is, she wants to see 
him again.” 

At that moment, the Mexican with the scar 
came out of the baggage-room, the huge ward¬ 
robe trunk slung on his shoulder as though it 
had been a pasteboard carton, and, his compan¬ 
ion falling in behind him, the party moved away 
along the tracks. 


42 




WEEN TEE LIMITED PULLED IN 


At the street, the girl extended her hand. 
i ‘Yon have promised to come.” She winced 
as he pressed her glove. “Now don’t forget, 
for I want yon . 9 9 

And as Alan stood looking disconsolately 
after her, she waved her hand and blew him an 
imaginary kiss; then turning, she followed her 
strange porters in the direction of the water 
front. For a full minute, the doctor stood gaz¬ 
ing after her. Finally, with a dubious shake of 
his head, he retraced his steps to the baggage- 


room. 




CHAPTER V 


DOWN THE HARBOR 

♦ 


T HE transfer of his trunk arranged, Alan 
sauntered down the platform. Half¬ 
way along, the Western Union sign 
caught his eye and there came to his mind a 
doting aunt in the East who had probably seen 
some account of the wreck, with possibly some 
mention of his own name. As he entered, the 
same operator cast him a casual glance over 
the top of the sporting page of the morning 
paper; then reluctantly hunched out of his chair 
and leaned his elbows on the counter. 

“Did Senor de la Guerra show up?” he 
inquired as Alan finally shoved the yellow slip 
in his direction. 

“He sent over a couple of his men,” Alan 
explained. “We found them waiting outside 
your office just now when we finished break¬ 
fast.” 


44 


DOWN TEE HARBOR 


The agent’s ink-stained fingers stopped their 
thumbing of the dog’s-eared rate-book. 

“You don’t mean the pair of greasers who 
were lounging by that mail-box five minutes 
ago?” he queried. 

“Yes. That’s where they were standing.” 

“One of ’em had a nasty scar across his 
cheek?” 

“Yes. What of it?” 

“Good Lord!” the agent ejaculated. 

“What do you mean?” A ripple of dread 
swept through Alan’s mind. 

1 ‘ Oh, nothing. ’ ’ The man shook his head du- 

¥ 

biously. “I suppose it’s all right. Only that 
fellow with the scar is Ruiz, who held up that 
party out to Alpine seven years ago. He only 
got out of San Quentin last month.” 

“Are you sure of what you are saying?” 
Alan’s voice was dry. 

“Am I sure?” The man gave a mirthless 
chuckle. “I was court stenographer in those 
days and you can’t sit opposite to that face and 
forget it.” 

Throwing a dollar on the counter, Alan 
grabbed his suitcase and ran out of the station. 

45 




TEE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


A hundred yards down the street he slowed 
down to a jog trot, then to a brisk walk. After 
all, he was unnecessarily alarming himself. 
Suppose it was Ruiz. Once a criminal always 
a criminal was a good police theory but—still it 
was curious after all that the girl’s father 
should have sent to meet her two men she had 
never seen before. But had he sent them? 
Perhaps— Lethbridge broke into a dead run. 
Dodging trucks and wagons, he kept to the mid¬ 
dle of the street, much to the amazement of the 
passers-by who turned and stared in astonish¬ 
ment at the fleeing man, his suitcase bumping 
against his legs, his overcoat floating out behind. 

As he burst out on the water front, he brought 
up short, glancing right and left in the vain hope 
that the girl and her companions might be in 
sight. Then he darted for the dock where his 
memory told him his launch was awaiting him. 

The air was reeking with the smell of fish and 
tar. Into the oily waters of the bay the pier 
stretched like a shrouded ghostlike arm. Near 
the end, ten feet below the planking, the Alba¬ 
tross was rocking gently at her moorings. A 
power-boat, broad of beam and solid of timber, 

46 




DOWN THE HARBOR 


she had become a favorite with fishermen, both 
because of her own stanch qualities and because 
of her jovial skipper, a red-shocked mariner 
framed O’Neil, who had lost his right eye in 
some Central American revolution. 

Pitching his suitcase into the cockpit in the 
stern, sailing his coat in its wake, Alan gave a 
spring that landed him in a heap on the deck¬ 
house and brought the carrot top piece of O’Neil 
bristling out of the forward hatch. 

“Say, what the h—1?” he bellowed indig¬ 
nantly. Then as Alan scrambled to his feet the 
flush of anger faded to a look of blank amaze¬ 
ment. 

“For the love of Mike, Doctor, what’s up?” 
he queried as Alan hitched down beside him. 

“ I ’ll explain later, ’ ’ the latter gasped. ‘ 4 Only 
I want you to get this boat down to the mouth of 
the harbor as quickly as you can.” 

“But Mr. Lawton,” O’Neil expostulated. 

“Don’t mind Lawton. I want to intercept a 
boat that’s coming out and there’s no time to 
lose. For the Lord’s sake, hurry.” 

Impressed by the earnest tone of the man 
whom he had grown to like on a previous trip, 

47 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


the captain let fly a large quid over the rail 
and stuck his head down the hatch. 

‘ ‘ Hey, Jim! ’’ he bellowed. ‘ ‘ Come on up here 
and get your engine going. The doctor ’s come 
and he wants to start right off. Hurry up, man, 
it’s important.” 

In a moment, the narrow, thin, beaklike face 
of the engineer emerged from the hatch and his 
long rolled-out body slid like an eel to the deck. 

“What’s the big idea?” he grumbled out of 
the corner of his mouth, looking dumfoundedly 
from his commander to Alan, who was fran¬ 
tically trying to snap the stern hawser off the 
post. 

“Get her going and don’t ask questions,” the 
captain called out as he sprang along the deck 
to loose the bow mooring. 

“Hurry, Jim,” Alan urged, seizing a boat¬ 
hook and slowly pushing the Albatross from the 
dock. “I want to get to the mouth of the harbor 
to intercept a boat that’s coming out.” 

As the six feet four of the dazed Jim slid 
over the edge into the engine-pit, the pier began 
to move gently by and the Albatross, propelled 

48 




DOWN THE HARBOR 


by the boathooks, quietly slipped into the 
stream. 

The dense fog wrapped the harbor like a 
shroud, dripping from the little mast in patter¬ 
ing drops upon the deck. From amidships, a 
steady stream of oaths flowed above the engine, 
into whose chilled primers Jim was squirting 
gasoline from a long-spouted oil-can. Suddenly 
there was a muffled explosion, a series of sharp 
reports and the Albatross lurched forward. 
Gradually she gained momentum and the tide 
hummed and bubbled against her sides. To 
starboard, the gray phantom of a battleship 
loomed suddenly and through the soaking air 
came eight strokes of a ship’s bell. Presently 
Alan worked his way forward and stood beside 
the captain, straining to pierce the milky bar¬ 
rier of the mist. Vaguely the bold headland 
of Point Loma rose ahead and a dull lowing as 
of some monstrous cow came floating to their 
ears and died away. 

11 Stop her ! 91 Alan called back to Jim. ‘ ‘ We ’re 
off the entrance now and had better lie to and 
listen. If we hear a launch coming out, we must 
try to pick her up and stop her.” 

49 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


i * Say, Doctor, what are you letting us in for V ’ 
O’Neil snorted as the engine stopped and the 
Albatross glided softly through the sticky water. 
“You ain’t going to hold up some craft, are 
you?” 

“It’s got to be done,” Alan answered grimly. 

“I’m a respectable married man,” the cap¬ 
tain chuckled, “and I give up this pirate stuff 
years ago. Still, if you tell us what’s blowing, 
we’ll probably ship along with you, won’t we, 
Jim?” 

“Sure,” the elongated engineer drawled, 
lighting a brown-stained cigarette stump that 
hung half out of the corner of his ample mouth. 
“Shoot, Doctor, and tell us what’s the dope.” 

While the Albatross rocked gently in the 
slight ground swell, Alan related his meeting 
with Paloma and the incidents leading up to the 
disquieting disclosures of the telegraph oper¬ 
ator. When he had finished, the captain sat for 
a time in silence. Then, he shifted a fresh quid 
from cheek to cheek and let fly an ample streak 
of umber over the water. 

“You want to know what I think?” his re¬ 
maining optic twinkled with a half-amused glint. 

50 




DOWN THE HARBOR 


“Well, I think, young feller, that you have got 
all het up over nothing. I remember that Ruiz 
business all right. He stuck up a party out to 
Alpine and they only got him after a hot chase 
up around Cuyamaca. But what of it? Now 
he’s out and got a berth on the island without 
the senor knowing anything about him. And 
it’s pickles to snails he’ll work honest and 
regular till some other greaser sticks a knife 
in him. And that’s about all that can be said for 
any of that gang they got working down at their 
Southern Ranch.” 

“I don’t follow you, Cap,” Jim shook his 
head. “That feller Ruiz was a bad one, even 
if he only got seven years for that Alpine job. 
If he had the chance, he’d shake down the old 
man for some dough all right, all right. But 
what gets me, Doctor, is why you think they are 
going to carry her off by water. He’d have to 
get her over into Mexico to be safe to demand a 
ransom. What’s the matter with the land 
way ? ’ ’ 

“The border’s heavily guarded,” Alan 
pointed out. “It would be some job getting 
by our soldiers and the wire fence.” 

51 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“That’s true enough,” the captain put in. 
“Only you’re just imagining a lot of things 
that ain’t so. Dames ain’t being carried off 
these days, and I’d like to know what you’re 
going to say if you do stop that boat and find 
the young lady sitting up bright and cheerful in 
the stern. Feel pretty foolish, won’t you?” 

“Not much,” Alan answered doggedly. 
‘‘ She ’ll have to get off and let us take her over 
on the Albatross 

“You got some job ahead of you, ” the captain 
chuckled. “Clear you ain’t had much to do 
with females, least of all with them that has 
some real Spanish in ’em.” 

‘ 1 Listen! ” Jim interrupted suddenly. * 1 Hear 
it ? There’s a boat coming down the harbor. ’ ’ 

Over the oily waters of the bay, steaming like 
a vat, crept a faint rhythmical puffing. 

“You’re right, it’s a launch sure enough,” 
the captain admitted. “It’s heading further 
over towards the point.” 

“Shall I crank her?” Jim queried. 

“No,” O’Neil objected. “For the minute 
that bird of yours gets humming we can’t hear 

52 




DOWN THE HARBOR 


nothing. Anyhow, we are drifting that way 
ourselves.” 

The puffing of the distant engine grew steadily 
nearer. 

* ‘ She’s just off there, ’ ’ 0 ’Neil muttered. 1 ‘1 ’ll 
bet she isn’t a hundred yards. Looks as though 
she would go by us without our seeing her.” 

“There she is,” Jim burst out excitedly. 

Watch out! Here she comes!” O’Neil 
jumped for the wheel. 

All at once a long, low fishing boat loomed 
out of the fog and bore down swiftly on them. 
At O’Neil’s shout, the man at the wheel jammed 
his helm to port and the onrushing boat, veering 
sharply, scraped the stern of the Albatross . 
As the craft slipped by, out to the ocean, Alan 
had rushed to the stern with a cry. For, in the 
helmsman, he had recognized the man with the 
scar. While in the cockpit aft, a gag of dirty 
cloth stuffed in her mouth, lay the figure of a 


woman. 




CHAPTER VI 


THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


“T^ OLLOW her!” Alan strained forward 
after the low-lying craft, dissolving like 
a stereopticon picture on the white sheet 
of the fog. 

“Why don’t you get her going!” O’Neil bel¬ 
lowed, gripping the handles of the wheel and 
glancing back impatiently at Jim, who was fran¬ 
tically cranking the heavy motor. 

“What’s wrong?” Alan’s voice was hoarse 
as he watched the engineer spinning the pon¬ 
derous flywheel. 

“Carburetor,” the man gulped, the sweat 
streaking down his dirt-begrimed face. 

From across the water came the steady chug, 
chug of the vanishing fishing boat. 

“H—1!” O’Neil growled. “They’re going 
to get away on us.” 

“Keep your shirt on,” Jim panted, dropping 
the starting handle. ‘ ‘ There’s something wrong 

54 


THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


with the wiring or plugs and I just got to take 
my time.” 

The puffing of the boat ahead was growing 
steadily fainter. O’Neil kept turning the wheel 
to right and left, swearing softly under his 
breath. Alan paced up and down the cockpit, 
puffing vigorously on his pipe, his eyes follow¬ 
ing Jim’s greasy fingers working madly at the 
sleeping engine. 

Finally the engineer emitted a grunt of angry 
satisfaction. i ‘There, d—n it,” he reached for 
a pair of pliers and quickly twisted together two 
broken ends of wire. “Give her some juice 
while I spin her. ” 

There was a loud explosion, a cloud of sooty 
smoke belched from the stern and the engine 
raced noisily. Quickly the Albatross gathered 
way and began to cut through the milky barrier 
ahead. 

‘ i They have a good fifteen minutes ’ start on 
us,” Alan slipped down beside the captain. 
“Do you think we can catch them?” 

“We’ve got to see ’em in order to catch ’em,” 
O’Neil muttered. “If this d—n fog don’t lift, 
we ain’t got a chance.” 

55 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


They were out of the harbor now, plowing 
through the leaden waters of the open ocean. 
Off on the port beam the metallic call of a bugle 
crept faintly to their ears. 

“Hey! Jim! Shut off that motor!” the cap¬ 
tain shouted presently. “Well have to follow 
them by the sound until things clear up.’’ 

The engine stopped and the Albatross slipped 
silently over the glassy expanse. From ahead, 
to starboard, came a deadened rhythmical chug¬ 
ging. 

“Let her go, Jim!” O’Neil squinted his sur¬ 
viving optic in the direction of the compass. 
“Give her all she’ll stand. They’re heading 
down the coast.” 

They were well out on the Pacific now, steer¬ 
ing S.S.W., and the solemn solitudes of the great 
ocean enveloped them. The air was chill and 
still but for the even beat of the motor and the 
half-surging murmur of the living, restless 
waters. Up there in the sky a disk of glarish 
light showed silver-white against the opaque 
gray, like a moon on a plaque of wireless 
cloisonne. 

Again, the captain ordered the engine 

56 




THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


stopped. Again, from off the starboard bow, 
floated the dull cadenced chug, chug of the flee¬ 
ing boat. 

“They’re still heading down the coast,” 
0 ’Neil commented. ‘ ‘ Probably they are making 
for one of them coves where they can land and 
take to the mountains. I am going to point a 
bit in and see if we can’t intercept ’em.” 

“Aren’t there any towns or settlements?” 
Alan inquired. 

“Nothing worth mentioning. No, if they can 
make a landing and get into them mountains, 
that girl’s father had just as well fish up the 
bait. There ain’t no Scotland Yard in Lower 
California and it would take an army to corner 
anybody with all them greasers agin you.” 

The minutes dragged along. It was over an 
hour since the Albatross had left the harbor. 
From time to time, the captain stopped the 
engine and still, through the thick, whitewashed 
wall, came the same dull chugging. 

“We’re not gaining on ’em,” O’Neil grum¬ 
bled finally. “They got a better boat than I 
thought they had, for Jim is giving our old girl 
all she’ll stand. What I can’t figure is the 

57 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


course them fellers are sailing. Probably it’s 
because they’re a bit twisted in their bearings. 
But they are making for Corona instead of 
down the coast.” 

“They certainly wouldn’t do that intention¬ 
ally,” Alan declared. “For if they landed on 
the island, the de la Guerra people would res¬ 
cue her. ’ ’ 

“Not necessarily,” the captain rubbed his 
vein-streaked nose. “Of course, if they tried 
to put in at the northern end where the family 
and their herders live, they would get torn to 
bits. But since the sheep business grew so big, 
the old man has had to import a lot of peons 
from the mainland. These fellers bunk down 
at the southern end of the island at a ranch they 
call the Kancho del Sur. They are a tough crew 
all right and there has been some nasty ructions 
between them and the Granadians. Naturally, 
the old senor has sided with his own men and 
he’s sent his nephew to live down at the Bancho 
del Sur to keep ’em in order. If Buiz had got 
work down there and Bomero, the nephew, han¬ 
dled him a bit stiff, the chap’s Mexican enough 
to get even. And he’d find a lot of help from 

58 





THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


that southern gang. And what makes me almost 
sure them fellers are from the island is they 
knew the girl was coming. If they had been 
just ordinary bandits from the mainland, they’d 
have never knowed . 9 9 

Another hour and another slipped by. 
Numbed, they conversed in monosyllables, their 
voices sounding hollow and muffled. Up in the 
sky, the half-drowned disk was growing clearer 
and more sharply outlined through the obscur¬ 
ing veil. Gradually the cold silver changed to 
warm yellow and then to melted gold. Then, of 
a sudden, the tenuous gossamer of film floated 
away over the waters and around them the 
Pacific stretched like a plain of sapphire dust 
under the unbroken, cloudless sky. A soft, 
warm breeze had sprung up, streaking the mir- 
rory surface with ruffled ribbons of watered 
silk. Way out on the horizon a long, green mass 
of land rose majestically from the sea and sil¬ 
houetted its towering, mountainous outline 
against the molten sun. Further in, nearer the 
mainland, lay a smaller rocky islet. Together 
they seemed like some huge marine monster and 

59 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


her cub feeding on the beds of kelp swaying in 
the purple waters round their heads. 

“Look!” Alan sprang to his feet, pointing. 

A mile and a half ahead, a low, unpainted 
fishing boat was streaking along. From her 
bow, V-shaped ripples, hemmed with dazzling 
white, scooted away across the smooth, even 
plain. 

“They’ve made us out,” O’Neil grunted as a 
figure rose in the stern and, climbing forward 
beside the man at the wheel, motioned excitedly. 
Aft, a woman stood up and waved. 

“They’ve unbound her,” Alan exclaimed. 

“They just had her hitched up in the harbor 
so she couldn’t raise an alarm,” O’Neil replied. 

* i They ’re not making for Corona, ” Jim called 
forward. “See, they’re cutting alongside of 
Sarten Island.” 

“How about firing off your revolver?” Alan 
suggested. “It might attract the attention of 
some of the senor’s men.” 

“There ain’t nobody on the little island,” 
O’Neil explained. “Corona’s the big one out 
to sea. The one ahead is called Sarten, which 
means frying pan in Spanish, both because of 

60 




THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


the shape and because it’s so bare and baked 
that the natives claim the devil cooks in it.” 

“It certainly looks as if they were heading 
for Sarten,” Jim called out presently. “I’ll 
bet you they are making for that little cove down 
on the mainland side where the handle joins on 
to the pan. ’ 9 

“But they can’t be , 99 0’Neil objected. ii They 
would never land on that dump. There ain’t a 
place to hide and we would be right on ’em. ’ ’ 

“Yet that’s what they’re doing,” Jim per¬ 
sisted. “Otherwise why ain’t they heading 
more towards the mainland? If they was going 
down the coast, they would be steering several 
points further east.” 

The craft ahead was approaching the point 
of the long, narrow handle of rock that reached 
out a half mile into the ocean from the sweeping 
pan-shaped mass of the island. Bare of tree or 
grass, unspotted by bush or shrub, its pink 
granite glowed like the molten copper of a 
gigantic skillet simmering under the beating 
rays of the broiling sun. 

The tide was at ebb, and swirled and swished 
around the rocky point, streaking the peacock 

61 





TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


green with patches of marbled foam. Caught 
in the swift flow, the craft ahead swung wide 
and sidled forward like a fox terrier. A moment 
later and she had slipped into the quiet waters 
of the channel and swept from sight behind the 
long, low granite wall. 

“They’re making for that cove all right,” 
Jim called forward. 

“Looks that way,” O’Neil admitted. “But 
why? That’s what’s gettin’ me.” 

“Perhaps, if it’s a feud, some more of the 
crowd from the Bancho del Sur are waiting for 
them,” Alan suggested. 

“That’s possible,” O’Neil growled. “And, 
if so, we ’re in for rough weather. Have you got 
that revolver of yours with you, Doctor ? ’ ’ 

“Sorry,” Alan shook his head. “You and 
Bill kidded me so much last trip for coming 
West armed that I left it at home.” 

“Too bad!” O’Neil said regretfully. “You 
surely could make that gun talk. ’ ’ 

“You can have mine,” Jim passed forward a 
long-barreled revolver. “After I seed you 
bring down them gulls, I knowed I wasn’t in 
your class.” 


62 




THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


They had doubled the point now and had 
swung into the still, sheltered waters under the 
lee of the island. Down to the south, the nar¬ 
row handle stretched its flat-top cliffs above the 
restless Pacific. On the ocean front, these 
plunged sheer into the stirring surf. On the 
side facing the mainland, they rested on a fringe 
of satiny sands that extended for half a mile to 
where the island bellied out in a great circle. 
At this point of intersection, hollowed like an 
armpit, the sea had eaten its way into a tiny 
sheltered cove. In the center of the little cres¬ 
cent beach, her nose stuck deep into the sand, 
was a dirty, gray fishing boat. 

‘ ‘ They ’ve quit her! ’’ Jim exclaimed excitedly. 

“The h—1 they have,” O’Neil growled. 
* ‘ They ’re in that deckhouse. Come on, get down 
in the cockpit or they’ll pot you.” 

Swiftly the boat skirted the long granite arm 
to the opening of the tiny bay. On some rocks 
to the left a group of seals slipped quietly into 
the still water. 

“Shut her off!” the captain ordered as, 
crouched beside the wheel, he deftly steered the 
oncoming launch straight for the boat ahead. 

63 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


There was a scraping, crunching sound, a sharp 
jolt and the stern of the Albatross, swinging 
wide, crashed into the rail of the beached craft. 

“Now watch out!” O'Neil muttered, grad¬ 
ually raising his grizzled eye until it swept the 
deck. “You keep squinting at the hatch, Doc¬ 
tor. I'm going to crawl along and take a peek 
through that porthole.” 

Gripping his revolver firmly, slipping over 
into the dirty fishing boat, O'Neil threw himself 
flat on his stomach and slowly squirmed along 
the deck. Opposite the cabin, he raised himself 
on his hands and peered through the circlet of 
grease-streaked glass. Then, lurching to his 
feet, he beckoned to his companions. 

“Come on over,” he called. “They've beat 
it.” 

“Better be careful!” Alan glanced anxiously 
at the low cliff behind the beach. 

“They ain't up there,” Jim had climbed the 
little mast and, holding to the cross-piece, swept 
the long arm of the island that extended like a 
causeway to the. north. 

“What I want to know is why they ever put 
in here.'' 0 'Neil stroked his red, bristling chin. 

64 




THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


“I got it,” Jim, who was fumbling with the 
engine, broke out triumphantly. “They’re out 
of gas. Look at this stick. When I shove it in 
the tank there’s only a half inch of it wet. The 
trouble was their reserve can sprang a leak. 
See! It’s sopped up that waste and run all 
over the flooring.” 

O’Neil turned the greasy rule over in his 
hands, then glanced down at the pile of soaking 
rubbish beside the motor. 

1 1 That’s the answer, ’ ’ he nodded thoughtfully. 
“It sure does look as if we had ’em good and 
proper.” 

“Yes, but how will we get at ’em?” Jim mut¬ 
tered. “That cock-eyed greaser has a gun and, 
if they beat it for that hill up there, how will we 
root ’em out? I think we had better sneak over 
to Corona and round up a posse.” 

“Yes, and give ’em a chance to hail one of 
them fishing boats out there,” O’Neil objected. 
“No, sir! There are three of us to two of them 
and we got two guns to their one. If we ain’t 
equal to ’em, and they greasers, we ought to be 
shot.” 

“All right,” Jim assented. “Here, Cap, give 

65 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


me a hand with tying up these boats and we’ll 
start after ’em. ’ ’ 

“Not yon!” 0’Neil declared. 4 ‘The doctor’s 
going to keep yonr gun and you’re to camp on 
board. For if them birds should give us the 
slip, they could get back here before we could 
and we would be nicely marooned with them on 
their merry way to Mexico. Also, we’d better 
anchor the old girl out in the cove there. For 
you’d stand a fat chance if them fellers came on 
you sudden like. And we’ll shove their boat 
out too and let her drift. ’ ’ 

“What time is it!” Alan asked. 
i 1 Two! ” O ’Neil threw his solitary eye on his 
huge repeater. “We got four hours of daylight. 
Let’s take a bite and get down to business.” 

After a hasty meal of bananas and doughnuts, 
the captain and Alan leaped down to the sands 
and, putting their shoulders to the beached 
craft, watched it slip out into the cove. 
Presently Jim splashed overboard the heavy 
anchor and the Albatross lay swinging at her 
moorings twenty yards from shore. 

Crossing the white stretch, the two men 
crunched over the stranded fringe of crackling 

66 




THE CHASE TOWARDS THE SUN 


kelp and pulled themselves up the low cliff to 
the level rock above. 

At their backs the handle of the island 
stretched like a narrow breakwater into the 
Pacific. Before them the coast swelled out into 
a great circle, the pink granite sides rising 
sheer from the curling surf. From the top of 
these cliffs, the land sloped gently up to a cone, 
cut off at the top and hollowed inwards like a 
saucer. Around the lower reaches, blocks and 
boulders made the surface jagged and uneven. 
Halfway up, these gave way to smooth shale 
slopes like the bare truncated crater of an ex¬ 
tinct volcano. 

Streaks of fleecy clouds were floating over¬ 
head. Out on the blue floor of the channel, fish¬ 
ing boats were slowly moving, their triangular 
sails glowing red in the sun. 

‘ ‘ They ’re either up in that saucer at the top 
or hidden among a pile of rocks around on that 
south side,” O’Neil said. “Let’s work ’round 
first. Only keep under cover and go easy. ’ ’ 

As they started to pick their way from boul¬ 
der to boulder, a faint cry from over the water 

67 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


brought them up short. Looking back, they saw 
Jim waving violently and pointing. 

“They’re up in that saucer,” O’Neil con¬ 
cluded. “Jim can make ’em out because he is 
a lot further away than we are and can see 
over the rim while we can’t.” 

“ It is going to be hard to get at them. ’ ’ Alan 
looked dubiously at the long stretch of smooth, 
fine rock circling the summit like a collar. 

“We can’t cross that open space,” his com¬ 
panion admitted. “That feller with the gun 
would pick us off before we were halfway up.” 

“What will we do f ” Alan asked anxiously. 

“Wait till night,” the captain concluded. 
“It’s clouding up a bit now. And, if we go at 
it from the mainland side, we will be out of the 
shadow of what moon there is and can make our 
way up without their seeing us. Come! Let’s 
get back to the boat. ’ ’ 




CHAPTER VII 
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


A LL about them evening was softly settling. 
Out on the curving rim of the world 
banks of clouds, fringed with red, bil¬ 
lowed up like a great forest fire. Overhead the 
mackereled sky caught the pink glow, then 
turned to leaden gray. Just above their heads, 
the truncated cone of Sarten loomed rugged 
and forbidding. All at once night let fall her 
thick veil and darkness brooded over the stir¬ 
ring, restless ocean. 

‘ 1 Good luck! ’ ’ Jim called after them as 0 ’Neil 
and Alan leaped on the white sands and the 
Albatross once more backed out into the little 
bay. 

Pulling themselves up the low cliff, the two 
men bore to the left where the island swept 
away in its great arc towards the mainland. 

“ Thank goodness, them clouds cover the 
moon!” O’Neil muttered. “It’s black as pitch 

69 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


and, if we ’re quiet, we ought to be on ’em before 
they know it.” 

“Provided they’re still up there,” Alan said 
dubiously. 

“Oh, they’re there all right,” the captain de¬ 
clared. “I saw one of ’em stick his bean over 
the rim half an hour back. And, anyhow, it’s 
the best place they could find. I was fishing over 
here last year and, as I recollect, the top of 
that mountain slopes in like a bowl and right 
in the middle is a bunch of boulders piled up in 
a sort of cairn. And, if they take to cover, we ’re 
going to have some job getting at ’em, for even 
on a night like this is, there’s some light so 
high up. ’ ’ 

Cautiously Alan and his companion picked 
their path between the scattered rocks until the 
smooth shale slopes rose sharply above their 
heads. 

“Now get on your belly and be careful,” 
O’Neil whispered. “They can’t see us ten feet 
off, but we don’t want to start this shale a-roll- 
ing.” 

Crawling ten yards, then pausing and listen¬ 
ing, the two men wormed their way up the steep 

70 





OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


incline. Just below the summit, they stopped 
still and held their breath as, on the rim above, 
a low voice muttered something in Spanish. 
Further along a second voice mumbled a reply. 
A minute, two minutes, they lay motionless. 
Again the voice above came to their ears, this 
time further along. Giving Alan’s sleeve a 
twitch, O’Neil again squirmed cautiously up¬ 
wards, over the edge of the rim. 

To the right, a murky figure was just visible 
against the faint moon glow seeping through 
the wadded clouds. As O’Neil cautiously rose 
to his feet, his shoe loosened a small rock which 
started jumping down the smooth slope with a 
train of pebbles scurrying in its wake. At the 
sound, the Mexican on the rim had turned 
toward them. Then, with a grunt of alarm, he 
plunged backwards into the bowl and dashed 
for the pile of boulders in the center. 

“There goes the other one!” The captain’s 
revolver barked sharply in the still night air 
as a black form streaked down the opposite 
slope. 

“Missed him!” O’Neil growled. “Now 
watch-” 


71 





TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


The rocks of the cairn stood out in a flash 
of flame and the gravel beneath their feet spat¬ 
tered in a shower. 

“Get back!” Alan dragged his companion 
down below the rim. 

“H—1! Now we’re in for it!” O’Neil mut¬ 
tered. “Them greasers have the eyes of cats 
and we haven’t a show to cross that space.” 

“How about the other side?” Alan asked. 

“It’s clear open ground all around that 
cairn,” O’Neil explained, “and while they can’t 
actually see us, there’s light enough for ’em 
to make out the mass of our bodies crawling 
towards ’em. No! There ain’t no use trying 
to rush ’em, ’cause they’d plug us before we 
had gone ten feet. The worst of it is we can’t 
fire for fear of hitting Miss Paloma.” 

“But what shall we do?” Alan’s voice was 
husky. 

‘ ‘ Search me! ” 0 ’Neil growled. 11 Looks as if 
we were in a deadlock. For it’s sure that they 
can’t get across that open space any more than 
we can.” 

For a stretch they lay in silence, their eye 3 
glued on the shadowy boulders in the center 

72 




OUT OF TEE FRYING PAN 


of the bowl below them. From time to time the 
rumbling voices of the Mexicans came to their 
ears. Once the tones were raised as though in 
dispute, then died away in a low undertone. 

“Do you think you could hold ’em off alone? ’’ 
O’Neil asked presently. 

“Certainly,” Alan declared. “My eyes are 
getting used to the light and I could see any¬ 
thing moving on these slopes.” 

“Take my gun, then,” O’Neil passed along 
his heavy Colt. “I’m going back to the boat.” 

“What’s your plan?” Alan queried. 

“I don’t know if it will work, but it’s a chance. 
I’ll be back as soon as I can.” 

And before Alan could question him further, 
the captain’s bulky form was clattering over 
the shale and was swallowed up in the night. 

Alan lay watching. All around him blackness 
hung oppressive over the mysterious expanse 
of the great ocean. Out to sea, under the vague, 
majestic outline of Corona del Mar, dim lights 
flickered like a swarm of fireflies on an oppres¬ 
sive summer’s night. Behind him, at his feet, 
a red lantern bobbed and swayed as the Al¬ 
batross rocked at her moorings. Faintly, a half- 

73 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


heard call floated up to his straining ears. Then 
the lantern moved towards him and hung still. 
A quarter of an hour passed and the red light 
again bobbed in the cove below. Well out from 
the cairn, a long low rock seemed to move. Des¬ 
perately, Alan strove to pierce the inky gloom. 
Was it a rock or—? He fired, the shale spurted 
and a shadowy form rose to its feet and darted 
back to safety. An answering shot lit up the 
cairn and again he heard the rumor of mum¬ 
bling angry voices. 

From below came the sound of pebbles chas¬ 
ing one another, the panting of a climbing man 
and, with a muttered string of oaths, O’Neil 
pitched down flat beside him. 

‘‘What have you got there?” Alan could 
faintly make out the bulky masses the gasping 
mariner was towing in his wake. 

“Sacks, d—n them,” O’Neil choked. 

“ What are you going to do with them? ” Alan 
asked, wonderingly. 

For a stretch, O’Neil lay softly cursing to 
himself. 

“They’re full of waste for Jim’s engine,” he 
said finally, “and these balls of cord are fas- 

74 




OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


tened to ’em. My scheme is to leave ’em lying 
here and to make onr way ’round the cone, play¬ 
ing out the cord as we go. If we keep down 
below the edge and are quiet, them birds will 
never suspicion we have slipped our anchor and 
are boarding ’em from the stern. But, first of 
all, let me have my gun and I’ll give a salute so 
they’ll think we are still here.” 

As the shot rang out the two men ducked and 
carefully began to make their way around the 
rim. 

‘ ‘ Hold that cord taut,’ 9 0 ’Neil cautioned pres¬ 
ently. “They can’t see it an inch before their 
snouts, but, if it was slack, it might sag on to 
them rocks.” 

After a time Alan paused and waited for his 
companion to come up beside him. 

“I think this is far enough,” he said 

1 ‘ Thank God the cord will reach, ’ ’ the captain 
muttered. “Now begin pulling easy on your 
end and, as you pull, work your way down 
towards ’em.” 

The air was still. Overhead the buried moon 
smudged with a sickly patch the layers of 
clouds. From the edge of the rim opposite two 

75 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


figures began to crawl down the side of the 
bowl. Faintly, in the dim light, Alan and his 
companion could make them out wiggling and 
hunching over the loose shale. 

“Come on!” O’Neil whispered as four 
streaks of flame lighted up the vague outline 
of a crouching Mexican peering out behind a 
boulder. Then there was silence, broken by 
a sharp click and the clatter of falling car¬ 
tridges. 

Again, the two figures on the slope opposite 
began to crawl steadily nearer. Again, six 
shots, spaced, crashed out, the bullets thudded 
dully, and the moving figures lay still. Cau¬ 
tiously the Mexican with the gun raised his 
head above the boulder and started to rise. 
All at once he gave a grunt of alarm as two 
bodies threw themselves on him from behind 
and he was hurled with a crash to the ground. 

For several seconds the three men fought in 
a writhing heap. Then came a stifled cry of 
pain and some heavy metal object rattled on 
the stones beside them. 

“I got his gun. You get the other feller!” 
O’Neil panted. 


76 




OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


Freeing himself from the squirming mass, 
Alan rushed up to the rim. But the second 
Mexican was already out of sight, slipping fran¬ 
tically down the sliding shale. 

A dull cry from 0 ’Neil brought him up short. 
A flitting shadow was darting from the cairn. 
Halfway up Alan fired. The cartridge jammed 
and missed. Before he could pull the trigger 
the fleeing man had plunged over the rim and 
was swallowed up in the blackness below. 

“Are you hurt?” Alan hastened down to 
where O’Neil was lying, flat on his back, his 
revolver still grasped in his right hand. 

“Wind!” the latter gulped. “He kneed me, 
d—n him! ’ ’ 

“He didn’t get your gun, anyway?” Alan 
raised his companion’s head. 

“H—1 no! How about his own?” O’Neil 
struggled to his feet. 

For a moment, Alan felt along the big boulder 
just beyond. “Here it is,” he exclaimed tri¬ 
umphantly. 

‘ ‘ Thank God, then, ” 0 ’Neil ejaculated. ‘ ‘ For 
we’ve pulled his teeth, even if we ought to be 
shot for bungling this job the way we have.” 

77 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


i ‘But where is Miss Paloma ? ’ ’ Alan burst out. 

“Here!” a shadowy figure was groping 
around the rocks towards them. “Did they get 
away ? ’ ’ 

“Yes!” O’Neil growled. 

“Are you all right?” Alan questioned anx¬ 
iously. 

‘ i Quite all right, ’’ Paloma answered. 1 ‘ They 
didn’t bind me after they left the harbor. Only 
they threatened to shoot me if I called out or 
tried to run. And, while it was probably only 
a threat, still I didn’t wish to take the chance.” 

“They won’t do no more shooting now,” 
O’Neil muttered. “It’s too dark to get after 
’em to-night, but we’ll attend to ’em in the 
morning. ’ ’ 

“Then let’s get back to the boat,” the girl 
exclaimed. “I’ve had nothing to eat since 
breakfast and I am starved. When I have 
eaten, I shall feel more able to tell you how 
grateful I am to you for getting me out of the 
hands of those men.” 

‘ ‘ But why did they carry you off? ” Alan ques¬ 
tioned as they slowly started down the slope. 

“I can’t make it out,” Paloma answered. 

78 





OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


‘ 1 When I left the station for the water front, 
I began thinking of your joking. And, while I 
wasn’t exactly frightened, still I was a little 
worried. For, while I was sure I had seen those 
men somewhere, it struck me as queer that 
my father had not sent Bart or Romero or 
some one I knew. I think I should have turned 
back then, except I had made so much fun of 
your warning. And, of course, I did not wish 
to make a scene when all was perhaps all right. 
But when I saw the boat, then I grew really 
frightened, for I knew my father would never 
have sent over that dirty fishing launch. I guess 
my face showed my suspicions, for that man 
with the scar threw down my trunk and grabbed 
my arm before I could turn to run. I tried to 
pull away from him and scream, but he clapped 
his hand over my mouth, picked me up as 
though I were a feather and carried me on 
board. Then he stuck that filthy rag in my 
mouth and bound my arms to my sides. There 
was no one on that old dock and the fog hid 
us going down the harbor. ’ ’ 

“But why did they do it?” Alan queried. 

79 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Who knows?” Paloma replied. “Ransom 
money? A grudge against my father? What 
will you of these Mexicans V 9 

‘ ‘ Do you think it has anything to do with that 
Rancho del Sur gang?” O’Neil broke in. 

“Perhaps. Still, I don’t know. Before they 
saw you they talked a little, but all I could dis¬ 
cover was that they were going to take me down 
the coast and wait until some one else came.” 

“Then you don’t think they were working 
alone ? ’ ’ 

“Some one else planned it. These men were 
merely obeying orders.” 

Leaving the shale, they picked their way 
among the scattered boulders. Clinging to his 
arm, Paloma and Alan went on for a time in 
silence. 

“You were very good, my friend, to have 
come to help me, ’ ’ she said finally. ‘ ‘ Only I do 
so regret that you have had your fishing 
spoiled.” 

“You have certainly furnished me with 
enough excitement to take its place,” Alan 
chuckled. 


80 





OUT OF THE FRYING PAN 


“Is it not so!” she laughed. “With wrecks 
and robbers and rescued girls, what will you tell 
your Eastern sweethearts V’ 

“I haven’t any sweethearts,” Alan snorted. 
“And, anyway, I think all this is just some 
movie stunt arranged for my benefit and that 
you are some picture queen and the captain 
gets letters from lovesick maidens all over 
America.” 

“Wish I did,” O’Neil chortled. “Still, my 
old missus would probably raise Ned, so I guess 
it’s just as well my fatal beauty is hid.” 

“Honest, isn’t it all a dream?” Alan whis¬ 
pered as, arm in arm, they waited on the beach 
while O’Neil was bellowing at Jim. “Girls are 
not kidnaped these days and respectable East¬ 
ern doctors don’t shoot at Mexicans out on 
rocky islands.” 

“Perhaps they are enchanted islands,” the 
girl murmured, “where fairy princes rescue 
princesses from awful villains and—” 

“And in the end get married and live happily 
ever after,” Alan concluded. 

“Here’s the boat,” Paloma dropped his arm, 

81 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


as the bobbing red lantern came to rest on the 
beach below. Halfway down the sands, she 
turned. 

44 Don’t you think/’ she called back, 44 that it 
spoils a fairy story to know the ending V’ 




CHAPTER VIII 


CORONA DEL MAR 


U P the aisle of the swaying sleeper, a 
brown man with a scar was crawling 
stealthily behind her. Struggling to 
rise to her aid, to throw off the paralysis which 
bound his limbs, Alan could only gibber forth a 
gurgling cry of warning. 

“Hey! Wake up!” A carroty head was 
waving before his sleep-tilled eyes. 

“You got ’em bad, doctor.” Jim’s lean coun¬ 
tenance was grinning over O’Neil’s shoulder. 

For a second, Alan stared dazedly at the two 
figures. Then, disentangling his feet from the 
steamer rug, he hitched out of the long chair. 

“Guess it was the doughnuts,” he blinked. 
“What time is it?” 

“Nearly seven,” the engineer chuckled. 
“You and her were sleeping like babes and 
we didn’t have the heart to wake you.” 

Following the engineer’s glance, Alan looked 
aft. In a steamer chair, her head thrown back 

83 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


and turned on one side, Paloma lay asleep. 

‘‘Pretty as a picture, ain’t she?” Jim con¬ 
fided earnestly. 

“She’s beautiful,” Alan murmured, half to 
himself. 

“Anyway, she’s having a better time than 
you were, ’ ’ the captain watched the smile play¬ 
ing around the full red lips of the sleeping 
girl. 

“She’s too wise to touch your doughnuts,” 
Alan rejoined. 

“There’s some of ’em left,” O’Neil advised. 
“Come on! Breakfast is ready.” 

The three men were finishing the bacon and 
coffee, when a shadow filled the companionway 
of the little cabin and Paloma’s head appeared. 

“Good morning, gentlemen!” she called 
down. “Have you nothing for a starving 
girl?” 

“I’ll bring yours back to the cockpit, miss,” 
O’Neil apologized. “This hole is too dirty 
for ladies.” 

As Alan sprang up the companionway and 
stood beside her on the deck, she offered him 
her hand. 


84 




CORONA DEL MAR 


“I am sorry you had a nightmare,’’ she 
whispered as they made their way aft, “and, 
while I may be as pretty as some pictures, I’m 
not beautiful.” 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for 
eavesdropping,” a flush of red swept up Alan’s 
cheeks. 

“Just the same, it was nice of you to say it,” 
she gave his arm a little squeeze. “It isn’t 
every day one gets compliments before break¬ 
fast.” 

“How about going after them greasers?” 
O’Neil asked as he set the heaped tray on the 
taboret before Paloma’s chair. 

“Don’t you think we can run over first to 
Corona?” she queried. “My cousin, Romero, 
will bring along our Granadians and a crowd 
will have no trouble rounding up those men, 
while they might try to fight you two.” 

“I think it’s quite safe,” O’Neil agreed. 
‘ ‘ The fishing boats are in by this time and there 
ain’t much risk of their being picked up.” 

“Suppose we start, then,” the girl suggested. 
“For my family must be much worried that I 
have not come.” 


85 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Hoisting anchor, the Albatross slipped be¬ 
tween the jagged rocks and, doubling the point, 
headed out to sea. The sun had risen and the 
channel lay sparkling and deserted under the 
rose-tinted glow. As Sarten fell away behind 
them, Jim called back and pointed. On the cliffs 
above the Southern Point, two forms were out¬ 
lined. 

“They look lonesome,” he drawled. “We’ll 
have to send some one over to keep ’em com¬ 
pany. ’ ’ 

Sunk back in the steamer chairs, Alan and 
Paloma lay in comfortable silence. 

Out on the horizon the long green mass of 
Corona del Mar grew steadily nearer. On the 
entire eastern side towards which the Albatross 
was approaching, it was bare of trees and 
sloped in emerald pasture lands up to a heavily 
forested mountain range that stretched along 
the western sea front. This ridge, starting 
from the small level plateaus at the southern 
and northern ends of the island, gradually 
arched its jagged spine until, midway, the bare 
summit towered several thousand feet above its 
pine-covered bases. Directly in the center of 

86 





CORONA DEL MAR 


the range the forces that in by-gone eons heaved 
the island from the sea evidently had concen¬ 
trated their effort and had driven far above the 
other peaks a colossal shaft of closely knit 
rose granite. Sharp and bold in its rugged out¬ 
line, it seemed to be standing on tiptoe on the 
shoulders of its fellows, striving to touch with 
its dome-shaped head the even blue of space. 

“What a splendid mountain!” Alan ex¬ 
claimed enthusiastically. 

“He is a fine old fellow,” Paloma’s face was 
flushed with the joy of her home-coming. “Our 
ancestor, the Comandador, named him the 
Mountain of the Sun, both because he seems to 
stretch his head up so to the sky, and because, 
right on the top, there are the ruins of an 
ancient Mexican sun temple.” 

A stiff wind had sprung up abeam and the 
Albatross rolled steadily, throwing from her 
bows wisps of spray that floated off across the 
water. They were running by the Northern 
Point, which stuck its nose like a raised prow 
into the surf. On its tip of bare rock, perched 
high above the swirling swells, stood the 
hacienda or manor house of the de la Guerra 

87 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


family. Worn and grim, it seemed like a 
weather-beaten old mariner straining for a 
glimpse of shore. 

Back from the point for a distance of half 
a mile the land formed a level plateau, rocky, 
swept by the hurricanes howling in from the 
Pacific. From the edge of this bare plateau, 
extending across nearly the entire neck and 
then following the range along the sea front 
to the southward, lay a dense forest of spruce 
and pine. Only on the eastern side towards 
the mainland had the trees been cleared and a 
road built skirting the rugged cliff. At the 
edge of the plateau this road sloped down into 
a snug little harbor in which several fishing 
boats were rocking at anchor, their triangular 
red sails flapping in the sun. Around the har¬ 
bor and strung beside the road leading to the 
hacienda, groups of picturesque, low-lying cot¬ 
tages were clustered, built in the Granadian 
style, their walls of white stucco outlined by 
robin’s-egg-blue shutters, their roofs of rose 
tile snuggled among the palms and orange trees 
of their gardens. 

As the Albatross slipped into the quiet waters 

88 




CORONA DEL MAR 


under the lee of the shore, Paloma pointed 
across the swelling reaches of the range to 
where, like a bed of snow left by the fleeting 
winter, a patch of white showed against the 
blue green. 

“See, my friend!” she seized his arm. 
“There is the main flock and those red dots 
moving on the edges are the vaqueros driving 
the sheep to some new feeding ground / 1 

“Are all your herders natives of Spain V 9 
Alan asked. 

“Those men you see are Granadians. You 
can tell them by the red shawls thrown over 
their shoulders. But our foreman, a man by 
the name of Gilmore, is a Yankee, and down at 
the Rancho del Sur, which includes the entire 
southern half of the island, we have that colony 
of Mexicans / 9 

They were running by the point of the har¬ 
bor. It was ebb tide and patches of rock, 
streaked with seaweed and mussels, stuck dirty 
brown out of the clear, green waters. Over the 
floor of the bay fish were darting, flashes of 
silver against the golden brown. Finally, the 
engine stopped and the Albatross slipped 

89 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


quietly up to a long, rustic pier reaching out 
from the low, sandy shore. All was still but 
for a flock of pelicans squawking over a pile 
of clam shells on the beach. At the end of 
the pier an old man with a red bandanna bound 
around his head sat dangling his legs, gazing 
with a dreamy stare at the approaching craft. 

“It seems like a city of the dead,” Paloma 
burst out anxiously. “Every one must be away 
except old crazy Lupos, who fishes all the day.” 

Suddenly, at the land’s end of the pier, a tall 
figure in khaki riding clothes came hurrying out 
on the planking. 

“It is my cousin,” Paloma exclaimed in a re¬ 
lieved tone. “I was afraid he and father were 
off on the range.” 

The engine stopped and the Albatross , swing¬ 
ing smoothly in a circle, glided up to the dock. 
As the propeller, reversed, once again churned 
the waters to a soapy foam, the girl sprang 
lightly ashore and hastened towards the new¬ 
comer. 

He was a young man, black-haired and sun¬ 
tanned, and he swung along the dock with a 
lithe, resilient gait that suggested great latent 

90 




CORONA DEL MAR 


force. As Paloma leaped up on the pier he had 
stopped for a second, stock-still, his mouth half 
open, his fine teeth showing white against the 
creamy smoothness of his sharply molded face. 
Then, springing forward, he caught both her 
hands in his own. 

For a time the two kept up a rapid conversa¬ 
tion in Spanish and by the gestures of Paloma 
towards the islet and by the looks the newcomer 
kept throwing in his direction, Alan could sec 
that she was relating her experiences of their 
journey. As she proceeded further with her 
narrative, her companion’s fingers kept tugging 
at his closely-cropped mustache and it was 
evident that he was greatly agitated over the 
attempt on one who, by the affectionate glance 
he threw on her, seemed very dear to him. 

At length, the girl beckoned to Alan and, as 
he jumped up beside them, the Spaniard bowed 
formally with a click of his heels, then stepped 
forward and wrung his hand with a hearty grip. 

“We thank you for what you have done for 
our senorita,” he spoke earnestly. “She has 
been the victim of the feud between our Mexi¬ 
cans and our family. You may be sure they 

91 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


shall pay for this,” and the young Spaniard’s 
bushy eyebrows contracted and the green 
around the iris shone dully. 

“But how did they know I was coming?” 
Paloma questioned. 

“They must have intercepted your telegrams. 
You know how the mail is left around down here 
on the dock. When they found you were ar¬ 
riving they realized their chance. Anyhow, we 
didn’t know of your coming, for your father 
would have surely spoken to me about it when 
just this morning we were planning a trip to 
San Diego for to-morrow.” 

“How is father?” 

The Spaniard hesitated. 

“He isn’t ill?” Paloma burst out anxiously. 

“No! Oh, no!” Komero hastened to assure 
her. “Only, I am thinking that you will find 
him greatly changed. He has worried much 
lately and it has aged him. ’ ’ 

“But what has been the cause?” Paloma 
asked. “There has always been the trouble 
with the Mexicans and it never ruffled him. 
What has happened?” 


92 




CORONA DEL MAR 


“I know not,” the young Spaniard replied. 
“Your father is a very reticent man.” 

“Where is father?” 

“Off on the range. We are going to San 
Diego to-morrow to buy some wire fencing for 
those tar fields in Sycamore Canon. He is 
getting the measurements now . 19 

“Then you shall come with me td the 
hacienda.” Paloma turned to Alan. “Father 
will never forgive me if I do not give him the 
chance to thank you, and you will have plenty 
of time to reach San Diego to-night. Come, let 
us be on our way. My duenna is at the hacienda 
and she will give us some luncheon.” 

“Dona Mencia is in the village,” Romero in¬ 
terposed. “I met her going in the supply store 
just before I happened down here. Suppose 
we all walk up now. I must collect a gang of 
our herders to go after those men.” 

At the end of the pier they skirted the corrals 
and followed the road around the bay to the 
little village. Sheltered by the plateau, the air 
was hot and full of the hum of myriads of bees 
hovering before the rambler roses that daubed 
with soft pink the cream sides of the stuccoed 

93 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


houses. In the courtyards, children were 
sprawled beneath the drooping palms, aimlessly 
scooping holes in the crumbling dirt. Coming 
out into a little square, they crossed to a long 
adobe building beside a huge corral. At their 
approach, a moth-eaten shepherd dog rose from 
the porch and wagged his tail. 

As they reached the steps, a figure came out 
of the doorway. She was a petite little woman 
in old-fashioned brocade, like a dainty marquise 
of Sevres porcelain. Over her dulled, silvery 
hair, a flowing mantilla of Castillian lace hung 
to her high slippers. The aristocratic poise of 
her head, the Roman nose, the finely cut mouth 
and chin, all bespoke breeding and ancient race. 
Her gray eyes were clear, her skin firm and 
fresh; in spite of her seventy years she still 
retained a trace of the bloom of her youth. 

At the sight of Paloma her pupils dilated 
as if she had seen a ghost. For an instant she 
swayed slightly and leaned against the door. 
Then, as the girl left her companions standing 
and sprang up the steps, she gave a broken cry 
and folded her in her arms. 


94 




CHAPTER IX 


THE HACIENDA 

A S the two women conversed in rapid 
phrases, Alan glanced around the little 
square. On the opposite side, beneath 
an open thatch-roofed pavilion, a circle of pic¬ 
turesquely-costumed Granadian women were 
spinning the gray thread into homespun cloth 
and singing at their work. 

“We are very primitive ,’ 9 Romero com¬ 
mented. “I suppose our civilization is about 
where the Comandador left it three hundred 
years ago. We have much to learn from our 
northern neighbors.” 

“And much to lose,” Alan rejoined. “Com¬ 
pare these workers with the wretches in our 
sweatshops and you must admit that so-called 
civilization has not made a much better animal 
out of man.” 

“My cousin wishes to present you,” the Span- 

95 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


iard motioned to the two ladies coming down the 
steps. 

‘ 4 Aunt Mencia , 77 Paloma took the older 
woman by the arm as Alan, hat in hand, ad¬ 
vanced. ‘‘ This gentleman is Dr. Lethbridge of 
whom I have been speaking. Dr. Lethbridge, I 
wish to present you to my aunt, Dona Mencia 
Carillo . 77 

“I salute you, sehor , 77 the little figure bowed 
gravely. “I wish I could make you know how 
I feel towards you for what you have done for 
my Paloma . 77 

‘‘Please don’t mention it , 77 Alan colored and 
fumbled with the brim of his hat. 

“Pardon, but I think I had better be mov¬ 
ing , 77 Pomero interrupted. “Will you tell Don 
Alvarez that I have taken some of the hands 
and have gone after those two Mexicans ? 77 

“I regret that we must give our sehor this 
new worry , 77 Doha Mencia shook her head 
thoughtfully. “I had hoped he would get some 
sleep to-night . 77 

“Is he ill ? 77 Paloma asked anxiously. 

“He is fast worrying himself ill , 77 the older 
woman replied. “He looks so drawn and worn 

96 




THE HACIENDA 


and last night I know he did not close his eyes 
because I myself got up at four and went along 
to his room to try to make him stop poring 
over those wretched papers on his desk.” 

“But what is bothering him?” Paloma 
asked. 

“The obstinate man will not tell me,” the 
sehora answered. “He exasperated me so last 
night, killing himself this way, that I spoke out 
my mind. But he just smiled and patted my 
hand and all I could get from him was that his 
troubles v^ould soon be over and that to-night 
he would promise to rest like a baby. If he 
learns of this attempt on you, Paloma, I dread 
lest he be so stirred up that he will not sleep.” 

“How long has he been worrying?” the girl 
questioned. 

“Ever since the City of Mexico touched here 
over a week ago. He must have received bad 
news for, since then, he has acted as if a great 
burden were crushing his mind.” 

“Perhaps we had better wait until morning 
before troubling him about me,” Paloma sug¬ 
gested. “Now I am home there is no danger 
and my cousin can bring those Mexicans over 

97 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


this afternoon and question them. What do 
you think, Romero % 9 9 

“I can see no harm in waiting / 9 the young 
man agreed. “The senor would not like such 
matters kept from him for long, but, until morn¬ 
ing, when he will have had a good sleep, I think 
you are right not to tell him.” 

“Then we will wait,” Paloma declared. 

“Good-by, senor,” Romero shook hands cor¬ 
dially with Alan. “I may be back late and will 
not see you, but I trust you will honor us with 
a long visit when your plans permit. Now 
I must be off. For we do not want to let some 
passing fishing boat take those men to safety.” 

‘ 1 Come up this evening and tell us what luck 
you had,” Paloma called, and the well-knit 
figure started towards the wool storehouse, 
against which a handful of men were leaning. 

Slowly, the two ladies and Alan passed 
across the square and out along the road skirt¬ 
ing the bay. The languid scent of spring was 
in the heavy air and the curtains beside the 
blue shutters of the cottages hung limp and 
drowsy. Gradually the dwellings became more 
scattered and they started to zigzag up the 

98 




THE HACIENDA 


cliff to the plateau of the Northern Point. At 
a sharp turn, driving before him a tiny donkey 
buried under a mountain of wicker-covered 
demijohns, a sturdy peasant suddenly came 
upon them. His uncut beard spreading over his 
short velvet jacket and the clumsy silver rings 
in his ears gave him the air of a brigand. 
Quickly withdrawing his hands from the pockets 
of his knee breeches, he respectfully stepped 
aside to let them pass. 

A five-minute climb and they came up to the 
bleak plateau that reached back from the North¬ 
ern Point to the fringe of the great forest. For 
a stretch the road picked its way along the 
eastern bluff, then veered across the plateau 
to the hacienda, which, out on the edge of the 
land’s end, hung stern and grim above the rest¬ 
less Pacific. Of one story, built around a court 
in the form of a double L, the long low-hung 
building seemed to be holding out its arms to 
keep from slipping over into the breakers be¬ 
low. The walls were of rough-hewn granite 
outlined by thick layers of mortar. Once the 
stone had been blue and the mortar white; but 
time had painted both with the warm colors of 

99 

> 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


antiquity. Heavy pink tiles weighted down the 
roof and gave to the manor a false impression 
of being squat and low. Around the court the 
roof projected far beyond the walls and, resting 
on massive, square pillars, formed a covered 
arcade that offered the sole means of com¬ 
munication between the several apartments. 
The floor of the arcade was raised from the 
ground and paved with Sienna-red flagging, 
while the set-in side walls were stuccoed and 
tinted to mellow cream. Through them opened 
iron-studded doors of weathered oak, finished 
with curiously wrought handles and huge 
clumsy locks. 

Over the rock of the inner court a thick layer 
of rich earth had been spread and roses and 
exotic plants crowded one another in carefree 
confusion. From the loop of the road swinging 
before the hacienda a broad path of stone dalles 
wound through the center of the court to the 
middle of the main facade. Here a flight of 
three steps led up on to the floor of the arcade 
at a point where double doors opened into the 
great reception and living room. Carved on 
their massive panels was the coat-of-arms of the 

100 




THE HACIENDA 


de la Guerra family, a lone pine quartered with 
a lion rampant and the inscription “Deus fortes 
arnat.” 

“What splendid views!” Alan exclaimed as 
they passed between the tall date palms. 

“Are they not?” the girl smiled, happy at his 
enthusiasm. “From our sleeping rooms out 
there in the right wing, it is just like being on 
board ship.” 

Halfway up the broad path of stone a brightly 
garbed Granadian woman came out of the 
kitchens in the left wing and hung up several 
strings of peppers, which made bright streaks 
of red and green against the soft cream walls. 
Bowing to Paloma’s greeting she followed the 
driveway before the court and continued down 
to the stone group of servants’ quarters and 
stables, sunk in the hollow of the plateau a hun¬ 
dred yards from the main house. 

“You children go right into the dining 
room,” Dona Mencia said as they climbed the 
low steps to the red flagging of the arcade. 
“There is Hakamura now, and luncheon is 
ready.” 


101 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


“Who is Hakamura?” the girl questioned, as 
a diminutive Oriental came towards them. 

“He is our new butler. When Pedro died, 
our Granadians were so valuable as herders 
that your father imported this Japanese from 
San Diego.” 

“Hakamura,” she added, “this is your mis¬ 
tress, Senorita Paloma. Take her bag to her 
apartment and add two places for luncheon.” 

Passing before the reception hall, they en¬ 
tered the spacious dining room. Wainscoted 
in weathered oak, with paneled portraits of 
the Seigneur of Corona del Mar, the massive 
sideboards and ornate carved silver gave out an 
atmosphere of somber, old-world richness. On 
the ocean front, the walls had been replaced by 
heavy plate glass doors that pushed back and 
gave access to the terrace outside. 

Crossing the room, Alan stepped beneath the 
striped green awning where the long wicker 
chairs and the water swirling around his feet 
gave him the impression of being on the after 
deck of a yacht. For a time, he stood gazing 
over the sweeping expanse of ocean, sparkling 
blue in the beating sunshine. Then, drawing 

102 




THE HACIENDA 


in a full breath of salt-soaked air, he joined the 
ladies at the long refectory table and attacked 
eagerly the excellent lunch served by the silent 
Hakamura. 

As they finished the avogadros, Dona Mencia 
rose and announced her intention of driving 
down to the village in the hope of meeting 
Senor de la Guerra, while Paloma led Alan to 
the great terrace where coffee was waiting. 
Against the cliff below, the breakers were boom¬ 
ing steadily, throwing up a gossamer mist of 
spray on which the sun painted dissolving rain¬ 
bows. Beneath the awning they reclined in the 
easy chairs, Alan full of the beauty of the 
sweeping ocean, strangely moved by the pres¬ 
ence of the girl by his side; she, gay, quite 
unmindful of her experience of the day before. 
Through the long afternoon they talked until, 
at length, the doctor gave a little start and 
looked at his watch. 

i ‘Good Lord,” he burst out. “It’s almost five 
and I must be back in San Diego to-night.” 

“I have been selfish to keep you,” Paloma 
admitted, rising. “Only it wasn’t all because 
I wanted you for myself, you know, but a little 

103 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


because I had the hope that father would be 
returned and that he could meet you as he will 
so wish to do. Only, if you promise to come 
again to me some day, I will let you go. And 
you do promise, my friend, not so? For I fear 
somehow that you will not want to come back .’ 1 

“Want to come back?” Alan faced her. 
“Why, you know I—I—hang it all, you know 
perfectly well I-” 

“There, I shouldn’t have been teasing to 
you,” she interrupted him, her face suddenly 
serious. “Please forgive me, my friend.” 

“But I don’t want to forgive you,” Alan pro¬ 
tested earnestly. ‘ 1 1 only wish I could make you 
know what this meeting you has meant to me. 
But I am not much on talking and the words 
that come to me seem too commonplace, too 
worn out, to tell you what I feel. Oh! If I 
could only invent some new words, some un¬ 
known words that no one had ever used before 
and would never use again. Then, perhaps, 
I could-” 

“There, please don’t!” the girl murmured 
gravely. “I made you say all this, you know. 
And we have just been making fun, not so?” 

104 






THE HACIENDA 


“But I am not making fun and you know 
I-” 

“Please!” She laid her hand gently on his 
sleeve. “I believe you are sincere, my friend, 
and I am happy for it. But, really, you think 
what you do about me because you have met 
me in so strange a way. And in a few minutes 
you will be going away and probably you will 
never come back. And the end will be you will 
carry away with you the remembrance of a 
girl you cared about for a day because she was 
foreign and different. And when you think of 
her—for you will think of her—often at first 
—then once in a while—then almost never— 
then you will say to yourself: ‘ She was a nice 
girl.’ And that will be all, not so, my friend V 9 
And she smiled at him and gave his arm a 
little pat. 

As Alan opened his lips to protest, the door 
swung wide and a man strode into the dining 
room. He was of medium height, and in his 
youth must have been straight as a pine, with 
square, powerful shoulders. But age had bent 
him, and beneath the bushy brows the sunken 
eyes shone feverishly from among furrowed 

105 






THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


wrinkles. And in spite of his waxed mustaches 
and a pointed, Van Dyke beard, which gave him 
the air of a retired officer, he looked drawn, hag¬ 
gard, worn. 

Holding back the door, the newcomer stood 
aside and bowed while Dona Mencia, with a 
stately little courtesy, passed before him into 
the room. As his tired eyes swept around him, 
the senor gave an exclamation of satisfaction 
and came forward out on to the terrace. 

“Dr. Lethbridge, is it not so?” he began in 
his nervous emphatic way, gripping Alan’s 
hand in both his own. “What good fortune is 
mine, that still I find you here. The senora has 
told me what you have done on the train for my 
little girl and it would have grieved me much if 
you had left before I had told you what is in 
my heart.” 

“Really, Don Alvarez,” Alan replied, em¬ 
barrassed, “I am afraid Dona Mencia has been 
making me out a hero, when, Heaven knows, I 
am far from one.” 

The wrinkles about the corners of the tired 
eyes deepened and the senor shot an apprais¬ 
ing glance of approval at the clean-cut man 

106 





THE HACIENDA 


before him. Then, without answering, he gave 
his hand a final pressure and turned to his 
daughter. 

“I am so glad,” he murmured with a break 
in his voice as the girl sprang into his out¬ 
stretched arms. “My dear little girl, I am so, 
so glad.” And he pressed her convulsively to 
him and kissed the soft, lustrous hair. 

“But why did we not receive the message 
that you were coming? I must look into this. 
Lately, many things are happening strangely .’ 9 

“But come, senor,” he added, still standing 
with his arm around Paloma ’& shoulders. ‘ ‘ The 
senora tells me that you must return to-day. 
Surely you can do us the honor of accepting 
our hospitality this night, for my nephew and 
myself leave at four-thirty to-morrow morning 
for San Diego and, as our launch is a fast one, 
we could land you before seven, which will be as 
early as your friends would probably start. If 
you do not mind the unchristian hour, why not 
send your boat back with a message and give 
us the happiness of a little glimpse of you until 
you can return for a longer visit?” 

“You are very kind,” Alan replied appre- 

107 



THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


datively, “and really, Don Alvarez, I should 
like to stay. But are you sure you were plan¬ 
ning to leave so early V’ 

“Quite sure, senor. And I shall have one of 
my men take a message to the captain of your 
boat so that he may carry word to your friend. 
And now allow me to show you your room, for 
the evening meal will soon be ready/ ’ 




CHAPTER X 


THE WHISPERED WHISTLE 


A FTER dinner they entered the great 
living room of the hacienda. In the 
subdued half-light, the beamed, oak ceil¬ 
ing seemed lost in the darkness above. Against 
the warm buff of the rough plaster hung paint¬ 
ings of madonnas and warriors in tarnished 
gold frames. Over the brown tiled floor, soft- 
toned oriental rugs were scattered, their edges 
frayed by the tread of centuries. The sea-face 
of the room was opened by high window-doors, 
but the drawn curtains cast over all a deep 
shadow. Around the sides were ranged curi¬ 
ously carved chairs and chests, satiny with age. 
One end was occupied by a huge fireplace of 
round, cobbled rock, with a soapstone mantel. 
A few paces before the fireplace, a long leather 
sofa backed against a huge oak table, on which 
reposed a tall lamp and numerous ornaments 
of old Spain. The general air of extreme old 

109 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


age caused to harmonize these things which one 
felt were accustomed for centuries to live to¬ 
gether and grow used to one another. 

Grouped around the fireplace they sipped 
their coffee and conversed of trivial things, 
except Don Alvarez who, subdued, absent, kept 
gazing thoughtfully before him as if following 
some bothering fancies beyond the flickering 
dancing of the flames. The others had evi¬ 
dently been struck by this mood, unusual in the 
genial old senor, for Paloma had slipped to the 
arm of his chair and putting her hand around 
his shoulders had whispered something in his 
ear. Quickly he had looked up into her eyes 
and patted her hand. 

“Nothing, dear,” he had whispered as his 
firm, set mouth relaxed into a tender smile. 
“Don’t worry! I will tell you all about it when 
I get the chance. Now you have your guest to 
think of.” 

Presently he arose and crossing to Alan held 
out his hand. “Matters of importance are 
waiting upon me , 9 9 he apologized, 11 and I must 
beg your permission to attend to them before 
some needed sleep. You must persuade my 

110 




THE WHISPERED WHISTLE 


daughter to sing for you, senor doctor; then, I 
am sure you will forget her old father ever 
lived. Good night, senor. Till to-morrow at 
breakfast/’ 

And kissing Paloma affectionately and bow¬ 
ing gravely to Dona Mencia he passed out on 
to the arcade. 

“ There must be something very serious have 
happened,’’ Paloma looked into the fire. “He 
has lost so much weight and looks so drawn 
and worn. When he returns from San Diego, 
I must take him in hand. ’’ 

“I am glad you have returned,” the old lady 
said earnestly. “For he has changed so the 
past week that I have been truly worried.” 

Out across the court the sound of a horse’s 
hoofs beat on the graveled driveway, and a mo¬ 
ment later the well-knit figure of Romero de la 
Guerra passed through the screen doors. 

“Did you catch them?” Paloma questioned 
eagerly, as he advanced towards the fireplace. 

“I am sorry,” he explained regretfully. 
“We had a big gang and beat through every 
inch of that island. They were gone.” 

“But how could they have gotten away?” 

Ill 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


“They probably hailed some fishing boat 
going over to the mainland. ’’ 

i 1 Could you find out who they were ? * 1 

“Evidently two Mexicans from the Southern 
Banch. Sanchez, whose boat they stole, said 
he saw a couple of men answering their descrip¬ 
tion hanging around the cove some days ago. 
When I return to my quarters at the Southern 
Banch I shall check off: the men and see who is 
missing. There is no doubt that the fellow with 
the scar is Buiz, who runs the pump house in 
dry weather. It sounds like him. But I want 
the name of the other one.” 

“But why should these men have attacked 
me?” 

“I don’t know. Where is your father?” 

“He has retired to work.” 

“I think your father had a quarrel with this 
Buiz over something. Didn’t he say anything 
about him when you told him about the mat¬ 
ter?” 

“We decided, you know, not to worry father 
until you returned. ’ ’ 

“That’s so. I will talk matters over with 
him on our trip over to-morrow.” 

112 




THE WHISPERED WHISTLE 


“You will spend the night here?” Dona Men- 
cia asked. 

“Thank you! I intended sleeping on the 
boat.” 

“But what an absurd idea!” Paloma broke 
in. “Our beds are surely better than those 
hard bunks. Anton will go for your bag.” 

“And you must do as your father said, 
Paloma,” Dona Mencia added. “She really 
sings well, senor doctor.” 

Seated at the antique Spanish spinet that, 
like the little old lady, still retained the sweet- 
toned freshness of its youth, Paloma sang. Her 
voice was smooth and rich with the throaty tone 
of an old ’cello, and, as she swung into a dance 
ballata of Andalusia, Alan leaned forward, the 
blood coursing through his veins. As she 
trailed away into a soft Granadian love song, 
Romero sprang to his feet and, resting his el¬ 
bows on the top of the piano, blended his clear, 
resonant tenor with her own. In waves the 
color rippled across his olive cheeks and the 
girl, also swayed by the troubling movement of 
the song, looked him full in the eyes and smiled. 

With a great rake clawing at his heart, Alan 

113 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


watched and listened. Evidently they were en¬ 
gaged and the man had a right to the warm, 
caressing glance of possession with which he 
enveloped her. 

61 Do you not like our song?” Paloma looked 
over her shoulder. “Why do you sit there 
looking so glum as if you had seen a spook?” 

“Do I like your song?” Alan, with a start, 
half rose, then sank back again on the sofa. 
“Oh, I like it. Please sing some more. Oh, 
yes, I like it. ’ 9 

For a moment the girl darted a puzzled quiz¬ 
zical glance at him; then, a slight smile played 
around the corners of her mouth and she 
dropped her eyes to the keyboard and began a 
spinning song of a maiden whose lover is de¬ 
parting for the wars against the Moors. 

“That is much too sad,” Romero broke in, 
as the last note died away. “Let us try our 
duet of the gypsy and her rom. I don’t think 
the senor doctor has ever heard a Romany bal¬ 
lad.” 

‘ ‘ I think we have sung enough, ’ 9 the girl said, 
pushing back from the piano. “I am afraid we 
have bored our guest.” 


114 




THE WHISPERED WHISTLE 


“How can you say that?” Alan sprang to 
his feet and faced her. “For you must believe 
me when I tell you that for the first time to¬ 
night I have known what music really means. ’ ’ 

“It was nice of you to say that,” Paloma 
replied more seriously, “and I am glad you 
cared for it and some day I will sing to you 
again. But now the hour is late for those who 
rise at four. So come, or there will be no night 
to bring us counsel.” 

Out over the arcade the moon was shining, 
bathing the court with floods of mellow light. 
Against the deep blue black of space Sun Moun¬ 
tain towered above the pines. Around its sum¬ 
mit light veils of mist floated like tenuous scarfs 
of tulle. 

As they passed the apartment of Hon Al¬ 
varez, they could see the old senor poring over 
some papers on the great oak table-desk. 

“I shall not disturb him to-night,” Paloma 
said, “but now that I am home he must not 
work like this.” 

At the room beyond they stopped. 

“Hakamura has brought your things in 
here,” Hona Mencia explained. “If there is 

115 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


anything you wish, please let me know. The 
drinking water is on the night stand by the 
lamp and I trust, senor doctor, that you will 
have pleasant dreams.” 

For a short time he stood pensive just inside 
the threshold. From the garden below came 
the pungent smell of verbena blended with the 
clean freshness of the soil wet from the shower 
just passed. At the next door along the court 
the ladies were bidding good night to the young 
Spaniard. Then their steps gradually died 
away around the arcade. 

Passing before the great four-poster, Alan 
crossed the lofty, bare, tinted room to the win¬ 
dow opening on the sea front. The breakers 
were bellowing steadily around the rocks and, 
from the black waters two hundred feet below, 
puffs of spray were spouting. As he returned 
to the court window, he heard steps coming up 
the walk and in the faint lamplight creeping out 
on the flagging he saw the figure of a very tall, 
gaunt man mount the steps and, without knock¬ 
ing, enter the senor ’s room. As Alan removed 
his clothes, he could hear the two talking, their 
voices a low rumble through the thick wall. 

116 




THE WHISPERED WHISTLE 


And this steady rumble soothed the pounding 
of his temples as he lay between the snowy 
sheets wondering at the strangeness of fate that 
should have brought into his life the daughter 
of this old Spanish family. 

He had slept he knew not how long when he 
was half-awakened by a curious noise outside 
his window. It was as if some one were whis¬ 
tling to attract another ’s attention, yet silencing 
the whistle, muffling it—a whispered whistle if 
such a thing were possible. Semiconscious of 
the sound, he rolled on his side, pulled the bed 
clothes over his ear and was relapsing into 
slumber w T hen he was brought bolt upright in 
bed by the thud of a body falling in the next 
room and a muffled cry for help. 





CHAPTER XI 

A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


A S Alan sprang from the bed, there was a 
crash in the shrubbery by the steps and 
the thumping sound of running on the 
soft lawn. With a bound he crossed the room 
and burst out into the arcade. A leaking fog 
had sunk over the island and the moon shone 
drowned and sickly, casting a ghastly, grayish 
glare upon the court. Alan paused and lis¬ 
tened intently, his senses fully awake. Through 
the narrow, iron-barred windows of Don Al¬ 
varez ’ room he could hear stifled groans and 
bodies lashing around on the floor. Before the 
senor’s door something was moving. Gradu¬ 
ally his eyes grew accustomed to the half light 
and he could see it was a man fumbling with a 
key in the lock. Tiptoeing quietly he jumped 
at the crouching figure and seized him by the 
shoulders. 

As the wan moon glow fell full upon his face 

118 


A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


the man drew in his breath with a hissing sound. 
It was Hakamura, the Japanese butler, his face 
sulphur yellow in the dim light. 

“What are you doing V’ Alan questioned 
sharply, still holding the Oriental’s shoulders in 
a clutch of iron. “Why are you trying to lock 
that door?” 

“I no try lock,” the man mumbled, as he 
withdrew the key. “He already locked. I try 
open. No can do.” 

Releasing his grip, the doctor shook the door. 
It did not budge. Throwing himself against the 
solid oak, he rebounded with a gasp. 

“We must get to him,” he declared, moving 
along the wall. “Try the window. You may 
be able to wiggle through.’ ’ 

Clambering to the narrow ledge, the Japa¬ 
nese squirmed and twisted against the heavy 
bars. “No use, sir doctor,” he panted, jump¬ 
ing down beside Alan. “No can do.” 

In a streak of chalky moonlight filtering in 
through the bars of the black room, Alan could 
make out a body lying doubled up beneath the 
table, rolling from side to side in agony. 

119 





TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


4 ‘Don Alvarez!” he called. “What’s the 
matter? Can’t you open the door?” 

A half-muttered moan was the only answer. 

“We’ve just got to get to him,” the doctor 
repeated. “You go tell Miss Paloma and I 
will wake Senor Eomero. If they have no key, 
we must get something to smash in that door.” 

The disturbance had evidently aroused the 
ladies, for as he hurried past his own room to 
that of the young Spaniard beyond, lights were 
showing in the apartments out at the end of 
the court. 

“What is it?” came a sleepy voice as Alan 
beat vigorously on the door. 

“Get up and come out quick,” the doctor 
shouted. 

“What’s the matter?” Eomero inquired as 
he thumped across the floor and stuck his head 
out. 

“Something serious has happened to Don Al¬ 
varez and his door is locked and we can’t get 
in. Have you a revolver and a key ? ’ ’ 

“I have a revolver, but no key, but my cousin 
doubtless has. Here she is now!” 

“What is it, doctor?” the girl questioned 

120 




A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


anxiously. “Hakamura says something has 
happened to father and that you cannot open 
his door. I have no key.” 

“We’ll break in then,” Romero concluded as, 
pulling on his dressing gown and slipping a re¬ 
volver in the pocket, he stepped out beside them 
and started along the court. 

“Hold on! You can’t do it with your shoul¬ 
der,” Alan hurried after him. “We will have 
to get a beam or fence-post or something. That 
door is three inches of solid wood.” 

“My God, there is some one in there attack¬ 
ing him!” Romero burst forth as the sounds 
of the bodies thudding over the floor floated 
through the open window. Drawing back, the 
Spaniard crashed his lithe, powerful body 
against the oak. The panel creaked, he cried 
out with pain, but the door held firmly. 

“Haven’t any of the servants a key?” he 
panted. 

‘ i Hakamura might have. ’ ’ Paloma turned to 
the diminutive Japanese who had moved over 
towards the railing. 

“I have two key. No fit door. I try open 
when doctor he come.” 


121 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


44 Let’s take a look at them,” Romero ordered. 

44 They no fit. I try,’ ’ Hakamnra protested. 

“Give up those keys, you Jap,” the Spaniard 
thundered, seizing him roughly by the shoulder. 

The little yellow man reached in his pocket 
and produced two large, massive keys. For a 
second Romero fumbled with the lock. 

44 This one certainly doesn’t fit,” he mumbled, 
throwing it on the flagstones. 44 Let’s see about 
the other.” The key turned easily and the lock 
snapped back. 

4 4 What do you mean by saying the keys 
wouldn’t fit?” he rose and faced the Japanese. 
4 4 We’ll attend to you later,” he added as he 
tried to push open the door. It stuck. Impa¬ 
tiently hurling his shoulder against it, he 
pitched into the room flat on his face. 

Quickly Alan stepped inside the threshold 
while the Spaniard scrambled to his knees. 

44 Keep me covered and don’t let any one get 
out,” the doctor ordered. 44 Now, Hakamura, 
light the lamp.” 

44 Do as you’re told, or I’ll put a bullet in 
you,” Romero snapped as the Oriental paused 
beside him, hesitating. 

122 




A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


‘‘Watch him!” Alan cautioned. ‘‘Hurry up 
now! Light the lamp.’ 9 

Romero settled on his heels, his head swing¬ 
ing from side to side, his leveled revolver fol¬ 
lowing his eyes. Cautiously the Japanese slid 
along the wall and crossed to the big table in 
the center of the room. A match scratched and 
crackled and a trembling flicker lighted up his 
distorted face. Removing the chimney, his 
shaking fingers strove to ignite the wick. As 
the line of flame flowed around the circle, Alan 
leaned forward eagerly. 

The sight that met his eyes made him draw 
back, staring. Between the broad table-desk 
and the four-poster the night stand lay over¬ 
turned, while the rugs on the floor were in wild 
disorder. The bed was in confusion, the 
clothes tossed as if caught in a reaping ma¬ 
chine. Beneath the table lay the Senor de la 
Guerra. He was flat on his back and kept draw¬ 
ing up first one knee, then the other; then ex¬ 
tending both straight out with a snapping of 
the joints. His eyes were closed, his face 
twisted with agony. Unconscious of those 

123 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


present he kept rolling his head over and back 
again. 

Paloma had paused in the open doorway and 
stood peering over her cousin’s shoulder. At 
sight of her father she uttered a cry and started 
forward. In her eagerness to reach the writh¬ 
ing man, she stumbled over Romero’s foot. 
With an exclamation he whirled and covered 
her with his revolver. Then, turning swiftly, 
he again swung his head from side to side 
around the great room. 

“Better keep back, Miss Paloma,” Alan ad¬ 
vised, his eyes sweeping the half-lighted spaces. 
‘* The man who attacked your father is in here. ’' 

“You take this gun and I’ll search the room.” 
Romero half rose. 

“I’ll do the searching,” Alan rejoined. 
“You keep me covered.” 

“If you see any one,” the Spaniard advised, 
“keep away so I can shoot.” 

Cautiously, Alan felt his way around the left 
wall of the lofty room. Carefully he lifted up 
the flounces of the bed, poked into the wardrobe 
and pulled back the long curtains. At the fur¬ 
ther end he stepped out on the balcony where 

124 




A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


the sea was slapping against the rocks two 
hundred feet below; then back along the other 
wall towards the tensely watching group just 
inside the threshold. 

“Look out! He’s in that closet,” Eomero 
cautioned, as Alan fingered the knob of a tall 
door opening into the wall. “Open it quick 
and jump aside.” 

As the hinges creaked and the doctor threw 
himself to the right, the Spaniard raised his 
arm. For a second he held it leveled, then 
slowly lowered it again. 

“Holy Mary, what does it mean?” Paloma 
burst out. 

“It means that we were mistaken, that’s all,” 
Alan concluded, relaxing. “There is no one 
in this room. Come, help me!” 

Gently the two men lifted Don Alvarez and 
carried him over to the massive bed. 

“What is it, father?” Paloma pushed aside 
her cousin and took the hand of the half-con¬ 
scious man. “Tell us what has happened.” 

At the sound of her voice, Don Alvarez’ eye¬ 
lids fluttered and his lips moved. Then, with 

125 



THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


a paroxysm of pain, lie twisted and moaned 
and his pupils took on a curious, glassy stare. 

“What is it, doctor? What is the matter 
with him?” the girl gasped, a sob in her voice. 

“Get some brandy,” he ordered sharply. 

As Hakamura hurried on the errand, Alan 
sat on the edge of the bed and, placing his ear 
against the old man’s chest, listened. Then he 
pinched the skin of the body, which had taken 
on a yellowish tinge, and again he placed his 
fingers on the pulse. 

“He isn’t going to die?” Paloma whispered, 
agonized. “Oh, doctor, don’t let him die!” 

“I’ll do my best,” Alan murmured. “Here, 
help me give him this.” 

Gently he raised the senor’s head from the 
pillow. Then, as Paloma slipped up on the bed 
with her back against the headboard, he low¬ 
ered it slowly to her lap. Taking the bottle of 
brandy from Hakamura, he pushed apart Don 
Alvarez’ lips and forced the opening between 
the clenched teeth. Then he stepped back and 
gazed thoughtfully at the figure before him. 
Gradually over the yellowish face stole a flush 
of purple and the glassy film of unconsciousness 

126 




A BLOW FROM THE UNKNOWN 


kept slipping from and covering again the deep 
brown eyes. 

“What happened V 9 Alan firmly shook the 
old gentleman’s shoulders. For a flash he 
stared up into the doctor’s face. 

“Come, senor, rouse yourself,” Alan called 
in his ear, spacing his words. “You must tell 
us what happened.” 

The old man was fighting the stupor that was 
again closing over his senses and he was strug¬ 
gling to talk. But from his lips, frothy at the 
corners, came meaningless, gurgling sounds. 

“My father, tell us,” Paloma pleaded. 
“Who attacked you?” 

At the sound of her voice he again opened 
his eyes and, gritting his teeth, half rose on one 
elbow. 

“He—he—he’ll,” he gasped. 

Then hiccoughs strangled him and he col¬ 
lapsed, great beads of sweat standing out on 
his candle-colored brow. 

“Let me take him,” Alan ordered, lifting 
Don Alvarez ’ head and supporting him bolt up¬ 
right against the pillow while the girl slipped 

127 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


down from the bed and moved over beside Dona 
Mencia. 

Once more the doctor reached for the flask 
and tried to force the brandy down the senor’s 
throat. But his teeth were clenched like a vise 
and he could not pry them apart. The old 
man’s breathing was becoming more and more 
labored and his body twitched jerkily. His 
pulse, at first pounding and racing, gradually 
began to skip and beat irregularly. Suddenly 
a rattle sounded in his throat, a quiver ran 
through his frame and, with a snap, he bent 
backwards, his head and shoulders jerking from 
the doctor’s grasp and falling limp over the 
sideboard of the bed. Stooping, Alan lifted the 
stiffened figure to the pillow. Then he stepped 
back reverently for Senor de la Guerra was 
dead, a fringe of froth lying in a layer on his 
lips. 





CHAPTER XII 


DR. LETHBRIDGE MAKES AN UNEXPECTED 

DIAGNOSIS 

I N the shadow-filled room there was silence. 
Somewhere out over the Northern Point 
an owl hooted mournfully. From over by 
the window came a half-choked gasp and the 
rapid sucking in of breath between clenched 
teeth. At the sound, the group bending over 
the great four-poster whirled like puppets fas¬ 
tened to the same rod. Against the dark wall 
Hakamura was backed, his eyes bulging. 

“Be quiet, you!” Romero cursed him softly 
under his breath as they turned again to the 
ghastly, stiffened figure on the bed. All at once 
Paloma pushed aside the restraining grasp of 
Dona Mencia and advanced, shoving one foot 
before the other like a walker on thin ice. Hesi¬ 
tatingly, she stretched out her hand; then pulled 
it back with a jerk as a child afraid to touch 
an insect. 


129 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Holy Mary, it is not my father,” she whis¬ 
pered, so low that Alan could just catch her 
words. “Senor doctor, say there is some mis¬ 
take. ’ 1 

Alan looked at her pityingly without answer¬ 
ing. 

“But he is gone?” she seized Alan’s wrist. 
“Is he dead?” 

As the doctor slowly bowed his head, she let 
his hand fall and drew erect as though stiffened 
by some high-powered current. For a second 
she swayed back and forth and he stepped 
quickly closer and put his arm around her 
shoulders. But, gently pushing away his sup¬ 
port, she bent over and closed the glassy, bulg¬ 
ing eyes. Then, clenching her fingers, she 
stooped and kissed the disheveled, snow-white 
hair. No sound came from her half-open lips 
as, with a shudder, she drew back and held out 
her hand to Dona Mencia. Unresisting, the 
older woman led the girl out on the arcade to a 
stone bench beside the railing. Staggering 
slightly she sank down, staring straight ahead, 
her lips fluttering like the wings of a humming 
bird. Suddenly, with a little broken cry, she 

130 




AN UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS 


threw both her arms around her aunt ’s neck and 
her body shook with convulsive sobs. 

The air was suave and warm and the insects 
of the night filled the beflowered court with their 
numbing buzzing. Tenderly Dona Mencia held 
close the stricken girl. Swaying backward 
and forward, she kept crooning softly as in 
those days long, long ago when she had soothed 
Paloma in her little cradle. Gradually the sobs 
ceased, a slight quiver ran through her body 
and, with a little choking sigh, the girl lay still 
like a child asleep at its mother’s breast. 

All at once, with sudden resolution, she 
sprang to her feet and called to the men still 
within her father’s room. 

“What does it all mean?” she demanded, as 
Alan and Romero came out to meet her. “He 
was quite well an hour ago* Why is he dead 
now ? ’ ’ 

“I don’t know,” Alan answered gravely. 

“Do you think he was attacked?” 

“There are no wounds on him that would 
have caused his death.” 

“But why did you tell me to keep out because 
the man who had attacked father was inside?” 

131 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“When we burst in and found your father 
lying half-conscious, naturally we supposed that 
some one had assaulted him. What else could 
we think V 9 

“Do you believe that now?” 

“It seems impossible.” Alan shook his head 
decisively. “In the first place there are no 
marks on his body that could have caused his 
death; there is no opening into another room; 
escape through the windows is out of the ques¬ 
tion ; and his door was locked on the inside for 
we have just found the key on the floor beside 
the overturned night stand where the senor had 
laid it when he retired.” 

“Yes, but his door could have been opened 
and locked from the outside,” Romero objected. 
“Remember there are other keys.” 

“That is so,” Alan agreed thoughtfully. 
i ‘ Where is Hakamura ?’ 9 

“Along by the pillar there.” 

“Let’s have him here and have a talk with 
him. ’ ’ 

“Hakamura, these gentlemen wish to ask you 
a few questions,” Paloma explained, as the lit¬ 
tle man approached. 


132 




AN UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS 


“What were you doing when I found you 
before the senor’s door?” Alan began. 

“I hear master very sick inside. I try un¬ 
lock him.” 

“Well, why didn’t you?” 

* 1 1 have two key. When I try, both no good . 9 9 

“Yet one fitted the lock perfectly.” 

“I know. Perhaps I hurry too fast get to 
master.” 

“Come, tell the truth,” Romero burst in. 
“Tell us what you were up to in the senor’s 
room before you came out and locked the door 
as the doctor caught you doing . 9 9 

“I no in room,” the man’s voice trembled. 
“Honest God, I just go sleep in hammock out¬ 
side kitchen when I hear cry and man run. 
Then I hurry quick and try unlock door and sir 
doctor he come.” 

‘ 1 Stop your lying and tell us why you attacked 
Don Alvarez.” Romero gripped the Oriental 
by the neck. 

“I no kill my master,” the little figure 
pleaded. 

“Well then, who was in the room with you? 

133 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


Tell me or Pll break every bone in your car¬ 
cass.” 

‘‘Honest God, I no know. I just try open 
door when doctor he come. ’ ’ 

“That will do,” Paloma interposed as 
Romero raised his hand. “ Perhaps he tells 
the truth and I don’t want you to hurt him.” 

‘‘We’d get it out of you later.” The Span¬ 
iard reluctantly released his grip on the Japa¬ 
nese, who slunk along the arcade. 

“Do you think he is guilty of carrying harm 
to father?” Paloma questioned as his steps 
died away. 

“Of course he is,” Romero declared. “He 
was locking the door, not trying to open it, when 
the doctor found him. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ But why should he wish to harm the sehor ? 9 9 
Dona Mencia interposed. “Ever since he en¬ 
gaged him some months ago, Don Alvarez has 
been most kind to him and Hakamura has ap¬ 
parently appreciated it. And a man does not 
kill his fellow being except for a reason.” 

“They say the Japanese are trying to get 
these Mexican islands for naval bases, ’ 9 Romero 
suggested. 


134 




AN UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS 


“What an absurd idea,” Paloma interposed. 
“How could Hakamura, alone, get possession 
of this island?” 

“Not so absurd if he were the forerunner 
of others,” Alan said. “You know you are cut 
off out here and apparently no one on the main¬ 
land knows or cares what happens. Still, it 
does seem that any such explanation is un¬ 
likely. ’ ’ 

“Would you advise seizing him?” Paloma 
asked. 

“I wouldn’t do that,” Alan advised. “Of 
course he might have had some personal grudge 
against the senor that we don’t know anything 
about. But in any case the boats can be guarded 
and, unless we get something more definite to 
go on, I think it is the best plan to let him alone 
and watch him. Also, it is possible that we are 
all on the wrong track and that no one harmed 
Don Alvarez for I could find no mark of vio¬ 
lence on him that would have caused his 
death.” 

“Are you sure of that?” the girl questioned. 

“No, not sure. I have only made a hurried 
examination and a blow on the head might not 

135 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


leave much of a mark in such a case as this 
where the subject died so quickly/’ 

“ Could it have been a stroke of apoplexy ?” 
Dona Mencia suggested. 

“It is possible/’ Alan admitted, “but the 
muscles are flexed like piano wire and there are 
other curious symptoms. Frankly, I don’t 
know; but if you will allow me to perform a 
post-mortem, I shall possibly be able to tell. 
May I do so?” 

“But certainly, my friend,” Paloma grasped 
his hand impulsively. “You are very kind to 
us in our trouble and it means so much to have 
your help. Only I regret this upset of your 
plans.” 

“Please don’t speak of such a thing,” Alan 
declared emphatically. ‘ i Dona Mencia, will you 
send two basins of water and some towels and 
have a long kitchen table brought to the senor’s 
apartment? I will go to my room now and get 
a few instruments and drugs which I always 
carry in my grip and, Miss Paloma, I think you 
had better take your final leave of your father. 
When I have finished, it will not be easy for 
you to see him again for I shall put his remains 

136 




AN UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS 


in the closed casket which Senor Romero says 
he will have sent up at once. Also, as things 
are after a post-mortem, it will be better that 
he be buried immediately. Therefore, Dona 
Mencia and your cousin had better make ar¬ 
rangements for the funeral to-morrow.” 

Gravely the girl came to Alan and taking his 
hand looked straight into his steady eyes. 

“You are good to me,” she said brokenly, 
the tears glistening on the long black lashes. 1 6 I 
shall never forget.” 

Then turning, biting her handkerchief to 
steady the trembling of her lower lip, she passed 
within the shadows of the senor’s room. 

Some time later, while finishing the mixing 
of his solutions, Alan’s heart went to his throat 
as he heard steps coming from the apartment 
adjoining and the sound of stifled sobs drawing 
away along the arcade. Then, picking up his 
instruments and bottles, he passed along the 
court to attack his gruesome task. 

The gray dawn was seeping through the 
barred windows when Dr. Lethbridge, with a 

137 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


sigh of relief, stretched his strained muscles, 
carefully scrubbed his hands and walked along 
to the entrance of the great living room. 

As he entered, a gray-haired little figure rose 
quickly from the sofa near the fire. 

“Come, senor doctor! Hakamura has your 
breakfast waiting,’’ Dona Mencia said. “It is 
a regret to me that you should have had to wait 
so long.” 

“How is Miss Paloma?” Alan asked anx¬ 
iously as they continued along to the dining 
room. 

“Quieter, poor child. Her courage has come 
again and I hope she will drop to sleep. ’ ’ 

At the end of the refectory table Romero was 
sitting, beginning some rolls and coffee that 
Hakamura had just brought. 

“What results, doctor?” he questioned as, 
half rising, he shook Alan’s hand. 

“Better wait,” the latter cautioned as the 
Japanese brought in a tray of cold meat and 
fruit. 

The Spaniard nodded understanding^ and 
the two men ate in silence. As they were fin¬ 
ishing, the tall doors swung back and Paloma 

138 




AN UNEXPECTED DIAGNOSIS 


entered. Her eyes were red and swollen, but 
her features were composed and her mouth set 
in a firm line. 

“What did you find?” she inquired eagerly. 

“You should have tried to sleep,’’ Alan re¬ 
proved her gently. “Come, let us sit in the ar¬ 
cade.” 

“Before I give you the results of my exam¬ 
ination, ’ 9 the doctor began as, outside the great 
living room, they pulled their wicker chairs 
close around him, “will you send Hakamura 
down to the boatmen who were to take us over 
this morning and tell them to go to San Diego 
and tell Captain O’Neil that I shall not return 
to-day or to-morrow. O’Neil will notify Law- 
ton.” 

“But, my friend,” Paloma objected, looking 
at him wonderingly, “I cannot permit that our 
trouble-” 

“You need me, Miss Paloma,” he inter¬ 
rupted. 

“Need you! Why, father is dead,” she mur¬ 
mured uncomprehending. ‘ ‘ Tell me ? Why do 
I need you?” 


139 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“ You do not understand ,* 9 he leaned forward, 
grave, serious. “I am needed, Miss Paloma, 
because I am positive that the Senor de la 
Guerra was murdered.” 




CHAPTER XIII 


A PIECE OF FISHLINE 


A BOVE the deep green pines girdling Sun 
Mountain a bunch of clouds hung white 
like a powder puff. The air was stir¬ 
ring and the syringas near the steps scattered 
their delicate snowflakes over the walk. 

“Then do you think that some one, perhaps 
Hakamura or the man you heard earlier, struck 
down the senor and escaped before we ar¬ 
rived ?” Romero questioned, first breaking the 
silence. 

“No one struck Don Alvarez,’’ Alan asserted 
positively. ‘ ‘ There were no marks of blows on 
his body, no evidence of violence.” 

“But, if no one attacked him, how was he 
killed?” the Spaniard asked. 

“He was poisoned,” Alan said quietly. 
“Poisoned!” Paloma gripped the arms of 
her chair, her eyes searching Alan’s face. i ‘ But 

141 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


it is impossible. Why do you think he was poi¬ 
soned ?” 

“The heart was enormously dilated and the 
veins and internal organs frightfully congested. 
Furthermore, the spinal cord reveals extensive 
changes in the ganglion cells of the anterior 
horns. All of which is characteristic of alka¬ 
loid toxemia. But, in order to make it certain, 
I tested the blood and the reaction was positive. 
I cannot tell what kind of poison was used be¬ 
cause I have only a few reagents with me. 
However, it is unquestionable that some power¬ 
ful alkaloid has been introduced into the sehor’s 
blood.” 

“But how did it get there?” Romero ques¬ 
tioned. 

“By hypodermic needle,” Alan declared. 
“On the forearm just above the wrist I found 
a minute puncture of the epidermis where the 
point entered. The same poison that was in 
the blood was fringing this puncture. There 
is no question but that some one poisoned him 
by shooting his arm with a hypodermic; either 
that or the senor committed suicide.” 

“You mean killed himself?” Doha Mencia 

142 




A PIECE OF FISHLINE 


burst out, horrified. “Holy Mary! He was a 
devout Roman Catholic. Such an idea is im¬ 
possible.” 

“I agree with you,” Alan nodded thought¬ 
fully. ‘ i There was no trace of anything in the 
stomach sack; therefore, he swallowed none; 
yet the poison in his blood was very powerful 
and struck him down almost immediately; and 
if he had injected the stuff himself, we would 
have found the hypodermic lying near. But I 
made a careful search and there is no such in¬ 
strument in the room; therefore, he did not kill 
himself.” 

‘ ‘ Then how was he killed ? ’ 9 Paloma inquired. 

“By some one sticking a hypodermic full of 
some deadly fluid into his wrist while he was 
asleep. Then, holding him down quiet until 
the drug got in its work and he sank into 
a stupor. This was where the plan failed, for 
your father, when he felt the prick of the needle, 
awoke and made the struggle that aroused me 
and caused his assailant to flee. It was this 
man I heard crashing through the bushes of the 
court. ’ 9 

“But why resort to such an unusual way of 

143 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


killing a person as injecting drugs into him with 
a hypodermic?” Paloma objected. “If any one 
should have wished father harm, why didn’t he 
kill him in some more ordinary way; or, if he 
wanted to feed him poison, to slip some in the 
water? Father’s drinking bottle is always on 
his table and he regularly takes at least half 
of it every night. It would have been so easy.” 

“That is true, but the cause of his death 
would have been discovered if a post-mortem 
had been performed, for the poison would have 
manifested itself in the stomach sack. In that 
case investigation might have led to the guilty 
party. But suppose the murderer’s plan had 
been successful and he had been able to hold 
your father down and quiet until the drug put 
him in a stupor. Then no one would have heard 
anything and your father would have been 
found dead in bed this morning. Unless one 
was already suspicious of poison, as I was from 
his dying symptoms, that puncture of the needle 
would have gone quite unnoticed and, as the 
stomach showed nothing, a physician would al¬ 
most certainly have pronounced death due to 
apoplexy. It was a clever attempt to commit 

144 




A PIECE OF FISHLINE 


murder in such a way that it would not be evi¬ 
dent that murder had been committed. And it 
would certainly have succeeded if your father 
had not put up the struggle that awakened me.” 

“But the door!” Dona Mencia put in. “It 
was locked and the key on the night stand.” 

“The murderer may have locked the door 
after him with a duplicate key, ’’ Alan explained. 

“Which Hakamura had,” Paloma added. 

“That is true,” Alan agreed. “Hakamura 
could have murdered your father and been 
locking the door as I caught him. Then, again, 
he might have been going to the senor’s aid as 
he says he was. Either explanation is pos¬ 
sible. ’’ 

“But how account for his denying having a 
key when he really had one ? ’ 9 Bomero reminded 
him. 

“It does look queer,” Alan admitted. “Still, 
he was greatly excited and a man might under 
those circumstances put a key in the lock and 
fail to work it and think he had the wrong key . 19 

“But he looked guilty,” the Spaniard per¬ 
sisted. “He was frightened green.” 

“He is clever enough to see that things looked 

145 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


a bit suspicious against him,” Alan argued, 
“and even an innocent man might appear 
frightened with murder hanging over him; es¬ 
pecially a foreigner. Then you say you 
searched him at once and also his quarters and 
the ground around the arcade before the senor’s 
room and that you found no sign of a hypoder¬ 
mic. Of course, the shrubbery out there is 
pretty thick. Are you sure you looked care¬ 
fully?” 

“Quite sure,” the Spaniard declared em¬ 
phatically. “There is nothing hidden there.” 

“That is in Hakamura’s favor,” Alan said, 
“for a hypodermic is nothing one can swallow. 
Still, it does look as if he might have been im¬ 
plicated in it. But we must not lose sight of 
the man I heard crashing through the shrub¬ 
bery and the tall, thin fellow I saw enter the 
senor’s room earlier in the evening. Who was 
he?” 

“Your description of him as a tall, thin man 
is vague,” Romero reminded him. “It would 
fit the description of our foreman who is very 
tall and very thin. But it might be many per¬ 
sons. By the way, Paloma, where is Bart?” 

146 





A PIECE OF FISHLINE 


“I have sent for him,” the girl answered. 
“He is out on the range but should be here soon. 
You can leave him out of the question, however; 
he is quite reliable and was devoted to father.” 

“We should leave no one out of the question. 
Miss Paloma,” Alan said. “You must remem¬ 
ber that we have practically nothing to go on 
except the Jap, the tall, thin man and your 
father ’s last words : 4 He—he—he ’ll. ’ Do those 
words mean anything to any of you? Don Al¬ 
varez was certainly trying to name his mur¬ 
derer for he said them when we asked him who 
killed him. Do you know anybody whose name 
begins that way?” 

“No one I can think of,” Eomero answered, 
stroking his mustache thoughtfully. 

“What is Hakamura’s last name?” Alan per¬ 
sisted. 

“Hakamura is his last name,” Dona Mencia 
explained. ‘ ‘ I don ’t know his other names. ’ ’ 

“And what is the name of this tall, thin fore¬ 
man?” 

“Oh, no,” Paloma gasped. “But it’s im¬ 
possible.” 

“What do you mean?” Alan insisted. 

147 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“It’s quite absurd,” she hastened to add. 

“I will explain,” Romero interposed. “Our 
foreman, Bart, is an American. His last name 
is Gilmore. But you know that in Spanish, g 
before i is pronounced like h. So Gilmore is 
pronounced ‘Heelmore. ’ And, when Don Alva¬ 
rez said ‘He-he-he’ll,’ he may have been trying 
to speak Bart’s name. That is what my cousin 
means.” 

“But it is impossible,” Paloma declared. 

“Nothing is impossible,” Alan reminded her. 
“Those words are important because they are 
about the only clue we have. That is, except 
this. ’ ’ And taking a folded piece of paper from 
his pocket, he displayed, lying within, a small 
end of cord, twisted red and white like a bar¬ 
ber’s pole. 

“What is it?” Romero leaned forward 
eagerly and lifted the innocent-looking object 
to examine it closely. “It looks just like an 
ordinary piece of fishline.” 

“It is,” Alan agreed. “Only, what makes it 
important is that I found it clasped in the death 
grip of Senor de la Guerra.” 


148 




CHAPTER XIV 
B. G. 

4 ‘ IT T seems just like any other piece of fish- 

jLline,” Romero commented, as the little 
group bent over the insignificant bit of 
string. 

“It is,” Alan assented. “Only it is banded 
red and white, while ordinary fishline is gener¬ 
ally green and yellow. Did you ever see any 
like it before?” 

“Not that I know of,” Romero shook his 
head thoughtfully. “But what does it mean? 
How did it get in my uncle’s hand?” 

“I don’t know,” Alan admitted. 

“Did you find any other clues?” 

“No. But I did not search the room care¬ 
fully. Suppose we go in now and look around. 

“Has it occurred to you,” Alan asked as they 
proceeded to the senor’s room, “that there 
might be some connection between Don Al- 

149 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


varez* death and the carrying oft of Miss 
Paloma?” 

i ‘But what connection ?’ 9 the old lady asked. 

“That I do not know,” Alan said thought¬ 
fully. “Have you questioned the servants as 
to whether they saw any one suspicious around 
the hacienda last evening?” 

“Yes,” Dona Mencia answered. “But they 
say they saw no one.” 

“Was there any one especial here to see him 
last week?” Paloma inquired. 

“Just his usual visitors. Some of the hands 
to ask him for help in their troubles and Bart, 
Bart especially. He was here many times.” 

“How about this Bart?” Alan questioned as 
they paused before the door. “Is he a reliable 
man?” 

“As far as I know, absolutely reliable,” the 
old lady answered. “Don Alvarez trusted him 
implicitly and, lately, he has put into his hands 
the entire management of the Northern Banch, 
the sehor merely supervising things.” 

“You say he is an American? Where did 
he come from in the States?” 

“I know not. Neither did Don Alvarez. 

150 




B. G. 


When I reminded him once that we really knew 
nothing concerning Bart, he merely laughed and 
repeated to me our old proverb: ‘Ask not after 
a good man’s pedigree.’ All I know about him 
is that he was a helper on a cattle boat that was 
loading here about five years ago. When his 
work was finished, as we were short of men, he 
asked a place as a herder. He had not been 
here a month when his knowledge of sheep at- • 
tracted the senor’s attention and, a year later, 
Don Alvarez made him his overseer of the 
sheep. I suppose you would call him a fore¬ 
man. ’ 9 

“You are sure he has not returned V 9 

“Quite sure. I sent one of the servants down 
to the ranch house early this morning and he 
says he is not there and does not know where 
he is.” 

“Well, let us look things over,” Alan said, 
holding open the massive door while the others 
passed ahead into the spacious apartment. 

“You know there is one thing that seems so 
strange to me,” Paloma stopped beside the 
table in the center of the room. “And that is 
that there are no papers on this desk. You 

151 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


remember as we looked in last night father was 
poring over several documents of some sort. 
And it is most probable that they had to do with 
what was worrying him. But where are they ?’ i 

“Is there anywhere he could have put them?” 
Alan asked. 

“Nowhere except in his safe,” Dona Mencia 
replied. 

“Safe?” Romero exclaimed. “Where is a 
safe ? I didn’t know uncle had a safe. ’ ’ 

“Oh, yes! See! You press here and the 
panel slips down.” 

“Can you open it?” the Spaniard inquired, 
bending over the shiny steel disk disclosed to 
their eyes. 

“I don’t know the combination. Do you, 
Paloma?” 

“No, but it is in one of father’s memorandum 
books somewhere. We will find it while we are 
hunting. ’ ’ 

For a time they separated, examining each 
inch of the floor, peering under the bulky four- 
poster. Suddenly, Alan gave an exclamation 
and bent eagerly over the rumpled sheets of the 
great bed. 


152 




B. G. 


“May I use these scissors?” he asked, 
turning to the table desk and picking up a 
pair of brass shears. “With your permission, 
senora,” he added, cutting two squares from 
near the edge of the coverlet. Carrying them 
over to the light, he studied them attentively. 

“Look!” he turned to the others. “See 
these!” He pointed out some flakes of a 
glassy substance lying on the snowy linen. On 
the other square an irregular yellow stain, as 
big as an orange, streaked the white. 

“Smell!” He held the yellow disk under 
Paloma’s nose. The pungent odor of ripe ba¬ 
nanas floated to her nostrils. 

“What is it?” She looked at him inquir¬ 
ingly. 

“I don’t know, but I will see if I can find 
out. ’’ 

Crossing to the washstand where a small 
array of bottles and instruments were spread 
out, he crumpled in a glass the square of linen 
with the white flakes; then he filled the tumbler 
with a clear liquid from a small pitcher. Hold¬ 
ing it at arm’s length, he added, drop by drop, 
another liquid from a phial. As the drops fell, 

153 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


a dazzling streak of magenta shot down in radi¬ 
ations from the center. Soon the glass was full 
of a brilliant carmine. Deftly the doctor re¬ 
peated the experiment with the yellow-streaked 
square. The fluid, as the drops fell, stayed 
white. He faced the group eagerly watching. 

“These white flakes on the sheet are poison; 
probably the same that was in the blood of the 
senor, although all I can tell with the simple 
means at my disposal is that both respond to the 
test for alkaloid poisons. The yellow stain that 
smells like ripe bananas is not poisonous/ , 

“But what does it mean?” Bomero inquired. 

“That the man who was injecting the hypo¬ 
dermic spilled some of the fluid on the sheets.” 

“But the yellow stain?” 

“I have no idea what that is. It looks like 
banana juice. But there are no bananas on this 
island. Anyway, it is nonpoisonous so we need 
not worry about it. ’ ’ 

“By the way,” Paloma interrupted, “where 
is father’s gray waistcoat? The memorandum 
book is in it. I remember seeing it sticking out 
as it was lying over the back of this chair when 
we were here this morning.” 

154 





B. G. 


“Here is the waistcoat/’ Dona Mencia 
stepped to the high wardrobe and drew out a 
dark gray garment. Paloma ran her fingers 
through the pockets. 

“That is queer /’ she exclaimed. “I know 
I saw it this morning and now it is gone.” 

“Probably it is just mislaid,” Dona Mencia 
said, “and will make its appearance soon. If 
not, we will have the safe opened.” 

“Still, it is curious,” Paloma persisted. “It 
was certainly here this morning.” 

“Then from now on, Miss Paloma,” Alan 
suggested, “it will be better to station one of 
your men to watch this room night and day. 
With the memorandum book gone, something 
might be taken.” 

Slowly they filed from the room. As Dona 
Mencia was swinging shut the door, she hap¬ 
pened to glance behind its massive oak. 

“What is this?” she exclaimed, stooping and 
holding up an object made like a cut-off cone 
to cover the forearm halfway to the elbow. Its 
cordovan leather was heavily chiseled in an in¬ 
tricate design. But what caused the three 

155 




THE WAKE OF THE.SETTING SUN 


grouped around the little figure to lean forward 
eagerly were two letters made of silver disks 
sunk into the shield that formed the central 
design. These letters were B. Gr. 




CHAPTER XV 

THE QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


O UT over the sun-baked plateau the 
funeral cortege wound its way, bearing 
to his last sleep Don Alvarez de la 
Guerra. At the head swayed the portly figure 
of Padre Francisco, the filigree of his surplice 
delicately traced on the purple of his cassock. 
In rhythm with his measured steps two acolytes 
swung their censers, leaving a trail of incense 
floating on the soft breeze. Behind them, sup¬ 
ported on a litter of heavy thongs, came the 
plain black coffin born by six stalwart Grenadi¬ 
ans. Their eyes misty, their heads held high, 
they looked straight ahead, proud in their sor¬ 
row at the honor of their task. Two by two 
the herdsmen followed, their short home-spun 
jackets opening over the snowy white of their 
pleated shirts. Knee breeches of the same ma¬ 
terial bound their heavy wool stockings. Then 

157 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


came the women, keeping step to the slow chant 
of the procession. Their corded dresses, their 
bodices of white lace and the three-cornered 
linen caps, all suggested memories of the by¬ 
gone days of Old Spain. The children of the 
school flocked in the rear, flanked by four sis¬ 
ters of Santa Maria of Granada in the somber 
black robes of the order. Subdued with emo¬ 
tion, the deep sonorous tones of the men blended 
with the vibrant voices of the women and the 
shriller bell-like notes of the boys and girls. 

Leaving the plateau, the long line had skirted 
the forest of serried pines to where, above the 
sea wall, a grassy clearing lay flooded in the 
streaming sunbeams. Beneath simple head¬ 
stones, gathered around a central block of gran¬ 
ite, lay the dead of the de la Guerra family. 
Out by the rim of the cliff, a pile of dirt scarred 
the plush green of the sod. 

Beverently the group of watchers listened 
to the words of the venerable priest, extolling 
the nobility and kindness of their master. Now 
and again a hysterical sob arose from the 
crowd. Then the long black box slowly slipped 
into the ground and shovelfuls of earth hid 

158 




QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


from tear-filled eyes the earthly remains of the 
old senor. 

Mute, oppressed by the thought of death that 
would come to them some day, the groups re¬ 
traced their steps beside the pines. Halfway 
across the plateau, the cortege divided, the 
peasants continuing on along the cliff, the mem¬ 
bers of the household turning aside to the 
hacienda. 

Luncheon was constrained. Paloma and 
Dona Mencia, wearied by the heart strain of 
the burial, ate in silence. From time to time the 
former raised her eyes to the portrait of her 
father facing her as if seeking counsel and 
courage. Romero de la Guerra and Alan con¬ 
versed in low tones, avoiding the subject filling 
their minds, speaking distractedly of mountain 
lion hunting and tuna fishing. Once the Span¬ 
iard had inquired if there was any news of Bart 
who, since the previous day when the wrist 
guard had been found behind the senor’s door, 
had been constantly in the minds of all. 

“It looks bad,” Alan had agreed when a 
herder sent out in search had entered and re¬ 
ported failure. “ Evidently, in spite of the 

159 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


boats being watched, he has managed to get 
away.’ ’ 

“But why should he have killed father?” 
Paloma insisted. 

“Perhaps the why of it all will appear when 
we get at those papers in the safe, ’ ’ the doctor 
suggested. “Has the red memorandum book 
turned up yet?” 

“No!” the girl replied. “It certainly is 
curious where that book went. If it does not 
appear by to-morrow morning, I shall have the 
blacksmith break the lock. Until then there is 
no danger. Pedro and Anton are taking turns 
watching over the room . 9 9 

“Do you think that is necessary?” Doha 
Mencia asked. 

“Certainly,” Alan assured her. “With the 
book containing the combination gone it would 
be most unwise to leave the safe unguarded.” 

They were finishing their coffee when Ko- 
mero, with a muttered exclamation, half rose 
from his chair, listening. Outside in the ar¬ 
cade the sound of nailed boots rang out, the 
door was flung open, and a very tall, gaunt 
figure slouched into the room. For a flash he 

160 





QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


stopped stock-still, hesitated, then slowly shuf¬ 
fled forward. 

He was above six feet tall and his thick chest 
and large-boned, angular frame were covered 
by a network of steel-springed muscles and 
tightly drawn, sun-browned skin. Awkward, 
his legs bowed from constant riding, he shoved 
forward, first one hip and then the other, which 
gave him an ambling, rolling gait, like a sailor. 
He was dressed in sheepskin chaps with the 
fleece outside. His feet were shod in very high- 
heeled black shoes, backed by heavy spurs that 
clanked noisily on the stone floor. He carried 
his head lowered with a sort of apologetic air, 
darting rapid glances from under his eyelashes, 
seemingly looking everywhere at once; a habit 
that might give to a casual observer the im¬ 
pression that the man was either shifty or em¬ 
barrassed. His disheveled, mud-colored hair 
had once been parted; but a great lock had 
broken loose from where it had been plastered 
and hung down dejectedly over one temple. 
From time to time he thrust it up in place with 
the back of his hand. His nose was large, nar¬ 
row, with a high, arched bridge; his mouth 

161 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


bulged out from bis face in a rounded pro¬ 
tuberance. The broad, square-set jaw, the 
high cheek bones and projecting lower lip gave 
to his face a look of dogged determination. But 
what especially drew Alan’s attention was that, 
above his left wrist, he wore a leather sleeve 
guard, with B. G. stamped in silver dots. The 
right sleeve guard was gone. 

As he hitched across the room, fingering 
nervously his dust-gray Stetson, Bomero took 
a step forward. But Bart, holding his eyes 
fixed on Paloma, shuffled towards the table, ap¬ 
parently unconscious of the younger man whose 
elbow brushed his sleeve. The girl had pushed 
back her chair and her glance drilled into the 
foreman’s clear gray eyes. Then, with a cry, 
she advanced to meet him and gripped his 
scarred, rugged hands. 

“Oh! Bart!” she exclaimed earnestly. “I 
am so glad you have come! ’ ’ 

“I left that morning very early,” he began, 
his voice deep like a church singer’s. “I’ve 
been in the mountain section ever since and I 
only heard the news just now down to the vil¬ 
lage and I come right on up.” 

162 





QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


“We must have a talk with you,” Romero 
broke in brusquely. 1 ‘ There are several things 
we want to know from you.” 

“Well,” the foreman drawled, a note of an¬ 
tagonism in his tone, “anything Miss Paloma 
wants to know she has only to ask.” 

“You can speak before this gentleman,” the 
girl explained as Bart’s look shifted to Alan. 
“This is Dr. Lethbridge of New York who has 
been helping us.” 

From under the bushy eyebrows the piercing 
gray eyes contracted and the foreman nodded. 

“Did they tell you that Don Alvarez was 
murdered?” Romero snapped, irritated by the 
man’s manner. 

“Jim said as how it was rumored he was 
poisoned.” 

“Well, where were you the night he was 
killed?” 

The foreman went white for a second; then 
the blood flushed his cheek warm mahogany. 
Quickly he turned towards the young Spaniard 
and half drew back his arm. Then his nails 
dug into his thumb and he said in a quiet drawl: 

“Now just what do you mean by that, Senor 

163 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Bomero? Let’s get this thing straight before 
either of us makes a mistake. When you ask 
me to tell what I did the night Senor Alvarez 
died, do you mean to insinuate that I am sus- 
picioned of having a hand in his killing ?’ 9 

“I am asking, not answering questions,” the 
Spaniard’s eyes flashed. “Now tell us.” 

“You’ll either change your tune or you can 
go to hell,’’ the foreman’s lower jaw was pushed 
farther forward. 

“Bart, please,” Paloma interrupted, laying 
her hand on his sleeve. “You mustn’t quar¬ 
rel.” 

“Well, what does it all mean then?” the fore¬ 
man still kept his eyes on the Spaniard. “What 
is this feller trying to put over on me anyhow? ” 

“Nothing, Bart, but we want to know if this 
is your sleeve guard.” 

As the girl held out the leather cone, the tall 
figure took it and turned it over in his fingers. 
Looking down at his right wrist he handed it 
back without a word. 

“Is it yours?” Bomero shot at him. 

“Where did you find it?” he asked Paloma, 
ignoring the young man. 

164 




QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


“Lying near father’s dead body.” 

“Good God! then yon think- V 1 

“I don’t think anything, Bart. I want yon 
to tell ns if it is yonrs.” 

“It’s mine, that’s snre,” he admitted. “I 
mnst have left it on the table.” 

“Then yon confess yon were with my uncle 
night before last,” Romero concluded trium¬ 
phantly. ‘ ‘ Tell ns why yon killed him. ’ ’ 

“If yon say I killed Don Alvarez, yon lie,” 
the foreman took a step forward, threateningly. 

Like a flash Romero thrust his fingers in his 
opened waistcoat and something gleamed dully 
in his hand. With a spring Alan pinioned his 
arms to his sides. Then, gripping his wrist, he 
twisted it until the ugly, snub-nosed Colt clat¬ 
tered on the floor. 

“Damn yon! What do you mean by interfer¬ 
ing?” the Spaniard muttered in a suppressed 
tone facing the doctor, his face ashen with rage 
and pain. “Yon have stuck your nose into our 
affairs long enough and I want you to get off 
this island.” 

The clock in the great living room faintly 
chimed two. The blood had flowed from por- 

165 






TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


tions of Paloma’s cheeks, leaving them patched 
with carmine and white. 

“But, Romero, what are you saying?” she 
gasped, stooping and picking up the revolver. 
*‘ To insult a man who is my guest. It is intol¬ 
erable. Either ask Dr. Lethbridge’s pardon or 
leave this house.” 

Romero’s gaze shifted uneasily from the girl 
to Bart. He was biting his lower lip which kept 
slipping out from under his upper teeth. Then, 
with a shrug of his shoulders, he turned to the 
doctor. 

“I ask your pardon, sir,” he said evenly. 
“What will you? We say sometimes things we 
better not have said.” 

“Please forgive,” Paloma urged, the tears 
springing to her eyes. “I know my cousin 
regrets.” 

“That is all right,” Alan reassured her 
quietly. “Our nerves are all on edge. Let us 
think no more about it.’ ’ 

“And now that we have cooled down,” Pa¬ 
loma shot him a grateful glance, “let us talk 
the matter over calmly. And, first of all, Bart, 
why were you in father’s room that night?” 

166 




QUARREL IN THE DINING ROOM 


“The senor was going over to San Diego in 
the morning and he wanted to leave with me the 
money to pay off the men. To-day is pay day. ’ 9 

“And he gave you the money V 9 

“Three thousand dollars about. I must have 
taken off my sleeve guard because it interfered 
with my writing the receipt . 9 9 

“You speak as if father planned a long stay 
in San Diego , 9 9 Paloma remarked. ‘ ‘ My cousin, 
who was to accompany him, says he was only 
going for the day to buy some wire to fence 
in Sycamore Canon.” 

“All I know is what he told me,” Bart per¬ 
sisted doggedly. i ‘ He told me he had important 
business in San Diego and would be gone for 
several days. Anyway, Sycamore Canon was 
fenced in last fall.” 

“But this is all nonsense,” Romero inter¬ 
rupted angrily. “I ought to know, since I was 
going with him. We were to be gone for the 
day and I understood the wire was for Syca¬ 
more Canon.” 

“Are you sure, Bart?” Paloma inquired. 

“Quite sure, Miss Paloma.” 

167 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“He’s trying to get out of it,” Romero in¬ 
sisted. 

“Get out of what?” Bart drawled. 

4 ‘ Of being suspected of my uncle’s murder, ’’ 
the Spaniard said. 

“Say, will you lay off this murder stuff?” 
the foreman’s voice was steely. “Why should 
I be suspected of such a thing just because I 
was with him that night?” 

“Because you probably don’t know,” Romero 
shot at him, “that, when we asked the senor 
who had struck him down, he said your name.” 

“Said my name,” Gilmore murmured, in¬ 
credulously. “Said I murdered him? Why, is 
this straight, Miss Paloma? Did your dad say 
I killed him?” 

“When we asked him who his assailant was 
he said: ‘He—He—He’ll.’ And my cousin, 
believes he was trying to say your name.” 

“Oh! Your cousin thinks so, does he?” the 
gray eyes shot a piercing look at the Spaniard, 
whose lip curled slightly as he flicked his cig¬ 
arette ash on the floor. “Well, I don’t give a 
damn what he thinks, Miss Paloma. What I 
want to know is whether you believe it.” 

168 





QUARREL IN TEE DINING ROOM 


“I don’t know what father meant,” the girl 
answered thoughtfully. “He was dying and 
perhaps was unconscious of what he was saying. 
Stay around the village, Bart; we may want 
your help later.” 

“Surely, you are not going to let him go,” 
Romero insisted as the tall figure slouched out 
to the arcade. “He is guilty. You heard him 
say he had received three thousand dollars 
from your father. No one knew he had it and 
he could have kept it just as well as not. That 
gives us the motive, as the doctor says. Surely 
you will have him taken. ’ ’ 

“I don’t know what to think,” Paloma said 
wearily. “Let us talk no more of this now.” 

“You are tired,” Alan said sympathetically, 
“and, as long as the boats are watched, there 
is no danger of his getting away; so don’t 
worry. ’ ’ 

“I will try not to,” she said gratefully. “I 
will return you your property, Romero,” she 
added, handing the Spaniard his revolver. 
“ Only, you must promise me not to use it. And 
now, Senor Lethbridge, if you would care to 
do so, I should be so glad to take you for a 

169 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


walk in our forest and show you the giant 
Sequoias which are so wonderful.” 

Romero had jumped to his feet like a horse 
under the spur. “But, my cousin,” he burst 
out, “you cannot go. You realize that we must 
decide what we shall do about your father’s 
death. This and many other things.” 

‘ i To-night, after dinner, I will talk with you , 9 9 
the girl flashed at him. “You understand, my 
cousin? That is my wish.” 

Romero took a step forward, blocking her 
way. His lower jawbones worked back and 
forth under the skin and he kept opening and 
shutting his hands. Then he stood back. 

‘ 1 Till this evening then, my cousin , 9 9 he bowed 
low. “And to you, Dr. Lethbridge, I wish a 
pleasant walk. Your servant, sehor.” 




CHAPTER XVI 


IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANTS 

I N the glare of the mid-day sun, Alan and 
Paloma moved across the open plateau. 
Through the quivering heat streaming 
from the naked rock things seemed vapory, un¬ 
real, as if distorted by the mischievous med¬ 
dling of a mirage. To the southward the Great 
Forest stretched away, its rows of spruce and 
pine pressing in lines of assault up the flanks 
of the Mountain of the Sun. Under the dull 
green canopy all was silent, still, shut in from 
the murmurs of the outside world. 

By the banks of a gently flowing stream they 
made their way; she gazing straight ahead, her 
thoughts in the far-away land of the troubled 
future; her companion distrait, subdued by 
the numbing force of strange emotions. The 
air was cool, delightful, freshened as it sifted 
through the rifts in the leafy roof above. Far 
above their heads the tufted tops were swaying, 

171 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


sending’ to their ears the faint seething of the 
slender needles. Now and again, a cone falling 
from a great height thudded dully on the 
springy ground. For a time they walked in 
quiet, wrapped in the cloak of their thoughts. 

“What is troubling you?” Alan questioned 
finally, his voice calmer. “Won’t you tell me 
what it is ? ” 

“My cousin,” Paloma answered, half to her¬ 
self. “The way he acted, it was intolerable,” 
she went on, her eyes flashing. “I cannot under¬ 
stand what made him be so rude to you, my 
guest.” 

“He loves you,” Alan said, “and you must 
not blame him too much because he does not 
like my coming.” 

A soft flush passed across her face. Her eyes 
followed the slow eddies of the current. 

“You know he loves you? You do know it, 
don’t you ? ’ ’ 

Slowly the black lustrous hair nodded. 

“Do you love him?” His voice was strained, 
anxious. 

She did not reply. The man had seized a 

172 




IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANTS 


piece of a boulder and was gripping it with a 
hold that made his nails blue. 

4i Tell me!” he burst out, his throat parched. 
< ‘ Tell me if you love him. ’’ 

Startled by his tone, she turned to him. Then, 
softly, so softly that he had to lean forward to 
catch her words: 

“I thought I did,” she whispered, shivering 
slightly as if she had a chill. “But now I know 
I was mistaken.” 

A snap of Alan’s arm and the great stone 
splashed a jet of water in the quiet pool. For 
a moment the girl gazed at him, wondering; 
then a look half-happy, half-serious softened 
her eyes. For a time they continued in silence, 
soothed by the ceaseless swirl of the foaming 
water. 

“Has your cousin any brothers or sisters?” 
Alan asked finally. 

“He is the son of my father’s brother, 
Alonzo,” Paloma replied. 

“How did your uncle come to stay on the 
island when you say that all the children but 
the eldest son have gone back to Spain to live?” 

“My uncle was educated at the Escorial at 

173 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Madrid and my grandfather bought him a com¬ 
mission in the King’s Guards. But while on 
a visit home the summer before he was to join 
his regiment, he fell in love with the daughter 
of the pump tender at the Rancho del Sur and 
married her over at Tia Juana. ’ ’ 

“What did your grandfather do?” 

“He had old-fashioned ideas about our blood 
and not only refused to allow either of them to 
return to the island, but cut off completely 
Alonzo’s allowance.” 

“What happened then?” 

“Uncle took his wife to Los Angeles, where 
he tried to earn his own living. It was all right 
until, a few months later, their baby came. 
Then their money gave out. Alonzo wrote piti¬ 
ful letters to father, who at once went North 
to help them. He found them living in one 
small room in the poor Mexican quarter and 
brought them all back with him to San Diego. 
Returning alone to the island, he had a stormy 
interview with the old senor and finally obtained 
permission, not only that Alonzo and his family 
return, but that he be placed in charge of the 
Southern Ranch. ’ ’ 


174 



IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANTS 


“Did the old gentleman forgive finally?” 

“He always refused to see them. He was a 
man of the ancient regime and believed that a 
deadly wrong had been done his race in mixing 
it with Mexican Indian.’’ 

“It must have made it hard for your father.” 

“It did and the worst of it was that the 
woman, Juanita, blamed father for it all, ac¬ 
cusing him of poisoning grandfather’s mind.” 

“That is always the way,” Alan laughed. 
“ ‘Help a relative, make an enemy,’ the Chinese 
say.” 

“Really, I think the woman went insane on 
the subject,” Paloma went on. “For, one day, 
when father was down at the ranch, she became 
so angry that she spat on him and ordered him 
from the house.” 

“She must have been a delicate soul,” Alan 
commented. 

“What could you expect?” the girl shrugged 
her shoulders. “She was a peon’s daughter 
and their blood is as revengeful as their brains 
are stupid.” 

“Did your grandfather leave him anything 
when he died ? ’ ’ 


175 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Not a centavo. But father realized the un¬ 
fairness of this and gave him the use of the 
Rancho del Sur. He would have deeded it to 
him outright, but for fear that Alonzo might 
die and the property would then go to Juanita.’ ’ 

“Is she still alive V 9 

“She died six months after uncle. They 
called it heart failure, but I think it was rancor 
at being dependent on father.” 

“And Don Alvarez took care of the boy?” 

“Romero was almost twenty at that time 
and father, who wanted to do right by him, 
proposed that he take his father’s place as man¬ 
ager of the Southern Ranch. He has done well 
and, although they say he has been cruel, he 
has been especially successful in controlling the 
Mexicans. And while father did not approve of 
his methods, he has been much pleased with his 
nephew’s success, as he realized what a had 
lot these laborers are. And he has done what 
I have often urged him to do and in his will 
left Romero the Rancho del Sur.” 

“But that gives your cousin almost half of 
the island.” 

“In size, yes. But the northern lands are 

176 




IN THE SHADOW OF THE GIANTS 


the best and then I want him to have a share. 
It is only right, as father felt that the Eancho 
del Sur should really have been given to Ro¬ 
mero^ father / 9 

i ‘ Have you known him well ? , * 

“During the years since uncled death he has 
come much to our hacienda. Often, on his re¬ 
turn from San Diego, he would bring me pres¬ 
ents and candy. So that while, as a child, I 
was not friendly to him, I came to look forward 
to his visits. On Saturdays he used to ride 
over early and we would go on long trail trips 
in the mountains. So that, as he was the only 
man of our class that I knew, I suppose I ought 
to have been in love with him. Yet, somehow, 
I never thought of such things and it was a real 
surprise when, on the afternoon before I left 
for New York, he told me he cared. I did not 
know what to reply. I was fond of him and 
thought that perhaps this was love. It is hard 
for a girl to tell, sometimes. So I told him I 
would give him my answer when I came home 
again. Since then, he has written me every day; 
and, homesick as I was, his letters came to be 
something I looked for each morning. I also 

177 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


think that being away from him made me for¬ 
get some things that grated when he was with 
me. Perhaps my letters softened and he nat¬ 
urally concluded I was growing to love him. 
As our proverb says, ‘He who is silent, grants.’ 
Anyway his letters became more full of his feel¬ 
ing and I let him write, half happy that he loved 
me. So that I could not blame him when, in his 
last letter, he said he was going to ask my 
father’s consent to his suit. Father’s death 
must have prevented this; although, since my 
return, as you know, I have had no chance to 
see him. Or, rather, I have avoided giving him 
a chance, for I dread to tell him I do not care.” 

“Yet you must,” Alan slipped his arm 
through hers as they walked beside the level 
lower reaches of the river. “I know how hard 
it is for you, but it is only fair to him.” 

“I will tell him to-night,” Paloma said de¬ 
cisively. “Yet, my friend, I dread it, how I 
dread it just the same.” 




CHAPTER XVII 


THE RED MEMORANDUM 


A S they emerged from the Giant Forest 
and made their way across the plateau 
to the hacienda, the sun was slowly 
sinking into the Pacific. Part of its orange disk 
was already below the curve of the horizon 
where banks of clouds were piled like a chain of 
fire-hemmed, snowy peaks. Halfway up the 
flagstone walk, a deep-toned gong resounded, 
filling the court with a melody of sweet vibra¬ 
tions. Before the great entrance door, in the 
cool of the arcade, Dona Mencia and Romero 
awaited their arrival. The latter was obviously 
anxious and, as they came up the steps, rose 
and greeted his cousin with an unconcealed show 
of petulant relief. 

During the evening meal, he was silent, con¬ 
fining his attentions to Dona Mencia and ignor¬ 
ing Dr. Lethbridge. Paloma was nervous, 
talked continuously, and tried to bring into gen- 

179 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


eral conversation the two men, who, like rival 
moose, kept watching one another furtively. 
Alan could see that the girl was but half think¬ 
ing of what she was saying, her mind dwelling 
on the interview with the man at her left, whose 
sharp, hawklike eyes kept trying to bore into 
her brain and glimpse in advance the answer 
to his hopes. Once, as their looks crossed and 
his eyes narrowed into a piercing glance, she 
shivered slightly and asked Hakamura to close 
the outside door. The mystery of the senor’s 
death was avoided, although it was evident that 
the suspicion against the foreman she had 
trusted was causing the keenest anxiety to 
Paloma. 

Grouped around the taboret on the terrace 
Alan and Dona Mencia conversed in mono¬ 
syllables. The Spaniard, moody, was stretched 
out in the long wicker chair by the railing, his 
cigarette glowing and dying against the cur¬ 
tain of the night. Paloma, distrait, kept gazing 
straight ahead over the black ocean whose rest¬ 
less stirring floated drowsily to their ears. 

Presently Alan pleaded a letter to Lawton. 
The girPs eyes strove to detain him, seeking 

180 




THE RED MEMORANDUM 


to put off the inevitable interview. But he 
shook his head slightly and, with a flicker of 
assent, she bade him good night. Dona Mencia 
also rose and Romero, apparently swept away 
by an impulse of nervous friendliness at his 
rival’s early departure, cordially gripped his 
hand and wished him pleasant dreams. 

Sprawled back in the chair of his room, his 
legs wide spread, Alan followed the dancing 
shadows thrown by the wavering lamp. Up 
on the high ceiling just outside the bright ring 
of light a shadowy silhouette seemed to resem¬ 
ble Paloma. He smiled contentedly. He loved 
her, this Spanish girl, loved her with all his 
heart and soul. His face softened at the 
thought. But what would his friends say? 
What would he himself have said a week ago 
if some one had told him he would forget all 
else in the world except two eyes, so beautiful, 
so- 

There! He was a fool. He knew it. But it 
was nice to be a fool. He chuckled at the 
thought of the snorts of his New York pals and 
Lawton’s sarcastic reminder of his own pre¬ 
vious views on women. Yes, but Lawton was a 

181 






TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


cynical old bachelor anyway. And he had never 
met Paloma. 

Presently the light on the table began to 
flicker and sputter and a sudden gust of wind 
blowing through the open window left him in 
darkness. As he arose to relight the lamp, 
he heard steps coming along the flagging and 
two figures passed so near that the sweet per¬ 
fume of the girl floated vaguely to his nostrils. 

“I know we have said all we can to-night,’’ 
Paloma was speaking in a suppressed voice. 
“ After all neither of us can think very clearly 
just now.” 

A few steps beyond his door, the steps 
stopped and he could hear Romero wish her a 
whispered good night. Then Paloma continued 
on around the court to her own apartment. 

For a time Alan stood in the open window, 
sucking in the odor of the orange blossoms float¬ 
ing on the gentle breeze. As he began to re¬ 
move his clothes he looked up quickly, conscious 
that a figure had repassed the window. 

Half rising, he watched the barred opening 
further along. In a second a shadow stole by, 
the silhouette of a man standing out dim and 

182 



THE RED MEMORANDUM 


indistinct against the faint light of the cloud- 
veiled moon. 

Crossing to his doorway Alan peered along 
the arcade. No one was in sight, but from the 
senor’s room adjoining came the sound of 
voices. Presently the door opened and a dim 
form appeared. By his costume Alan could 
see he was the Granadian servant whom Paloma 
had stationed to guard the safe. As the man 
came out, he turned and respectfully addressed 
some one within. Prom the few words he could 
understand the doctor gathered that the servant 
was being sent on an errand to the stables, the 
voice within, that of Romero de la Guerra, as¬ 
suring him that he would watch the room during 
his absence. 

As the Granadian’s clumsy boots clattered 
down the walk, Alan slipped, along the wall and 
peered through the barred windows of Don 
Alvarez’ apartment. Within, the lamp threw 
a circle of mellow yellow around the long table 
desk. By the left wall, dimly visible in the 
shadow, a figure was bending over the disk of 
the safe, whose shiny metal gleamed faintly. 
Suddenly the figure reached in his pocket and, 

183 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


taking a step nearer the table, held some object 
sidewise so it would catch the rays. Quickly 
Alan smothered the exclamation that rose to 
his lips. For the glow of the lamp fell soft and 
warm on a small, red memorandum book. 




CHAPTER XVIII 


THE OWNER OF THE FISHLINE 


B reathlessly Alan watched. First 

the man would pore over the book; 
then turn the combination; then com¬ 
pare the numbers on the disk with some figures 
in the memorandum. Against the bare cream 
wall the shadow of his hands loomed huge like 
some fluttering grotesque insect of the night. 
Presently a sharp click sounded, the handle 
turned in his eager grasp and the thick door 
swung back. 

Feverishly Romero threw himself on his 
knees and pulling out a narrow long drawer 
tipped it so the light fell full over its contents. 
On a pile of gold coins lay a long, folded piece 
of paper. Attached to this with a clip was a 
small, crumpled letter. Half turning and reach¬ 
ing behind him, Romero shoved the documents 
on the table. Then he replaced the drawer with 

185 


TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


its golden contents, swung shut the safe, and 
whirled the combination. 

Bent forward, his face against the bars, Alan 
hesitated. What should he do? Of course the 
man was one of the dead senor’s heirs and 
probably had the right to examine his papers. 
But why, after sending the Granadian on an er¬ 
rand, should he choose the middle of the night 
with Paloma absent? And why had he denied 
knowledge of the red memorandum book when 
he had it in his possession? Finally, what 
were those papers lying on the table that had 
caused his hand to tremble as he grasped them. 
Drawing back Alan felt his way noiselessly 
along the wall and slipped into the room. The 
Spaniard was absorbed in raising the panel 
before the safe and, unnoticed, the doctor tip¬ 
toed to the table. Grasping the papers, he 
quickly thrust them in his pocket. At the 
crumpling sound Romero whirled and, with an 
oath of surprise, faced him. 

“What are you doing in here?” he said in a 
low suppressed voice. 

“I might ask you the same question,” Alan 
replied quietly. 


186 




THE OWNER OF THE FISHLINE 


“What business is it of yours V 9 he snapped. 
‘ 4 This is our house and I have a right to do as 
I see fit.” 

“Perhaps Miss Paloma will have something 
to say about that,” Alan rejoined. 

Suddenly, the man glanced at the table. 

“Where are they?” he muttered, his throat 
dry. “You give me those papers.” 

“I think they belong to Miss Paloma,” Alan 
spoke evenly. 

“Give me those papers or, by God, I’ll-” 

With a snarl, the man drew himself together 
and sprang. 

Dropping to one knee, tackling the flying body 
around the thighs, Alan for a second bent under 
the terrific impact. Then his shoulder muscles 
stood out in knots and, as a woodsman swinging 
an ax, he slammed the struggling form to the 
floor. The man lay flat on his back, rolling his 
head from side to side, strangling for breath; 
wdiile Alan, his teeth parted in a fighting smile, 
crouched over him. Then his jaw relaxed. 

“The fight’s out of him for the moment,” he 
murmured. “The question is what shall I do 
with him?” Struck by a sudden thought, he 

187 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


knelt beside the writhing figure and searched 
his pockets. Presently, with an exclamation of 
relief, he drew from a holster strapped beneath 
his shirt the sinister-looking Colt he had han¬ 
dled in the dining room. The man on the floor 
was pushing himself up on one elbow; then 
arose unsteadily to his knees. He was still 
badly shaken, but consciousness had come to 
his jarred senses. All at once, like a streak, he 
thrust his hand within his open shirt; then 
slowly pulled it out again. 

“You are thorough/’ he mumbled grimly, 
slowly rising to his feet. ( ‘ I congratulate you. ’’ 

“Really, senor,” Alan assured him earnestly, 
“I am sorry, very sorry, all this has happened. 
I know there is a mistake somewhere and that 
you can explain the removing of those papers.” 

Romero was gnawing his lower lip until the 
blood showed on his white teeth. He was strug¬ 
gling for control and his temper was fighting 
him hard. Unsteadily he moved over and rested 
his hand on the table. 

“I suppose you wouldn’t believe me.” He 
was still panting slightly. “I suppose you will 
think I am making up a lie when I tell you that 

188 




THE OWNER OF THE FISHLINE 


those documents you have in your pocket con¬ 
cern something in the senor’s life that should 
not be brought to light, something that would 
bring great sorrow to my cousin if she should 
learn of it. It was merely to shield her from 
this sorrow that I concealed my finding of the 
memorandum so that I could remove the papers 
before she came upon them. For God’s sake, 
believe me, Dr. Lethbridge, and hand them back 
to me.” 

“What you say is doubtless true, senor,” 
Alan hesitated, half convinced of the man’s 
sincerity. “Yet, you must realize that you ask 
me the impossible. These papers were in Don 
Alvarez’ safe and belong to his daughter. I 
find you in the middle of the night removing 
them without her knowledge. Surely I cannot 
be a party to their concealment, however much 
sorrow I may bring upon her. I have only one 
course to follow and that I mean to do.” 

Eomero half sat on the table, staring at the 
rug. Then he raised his head. 

“Are you going to awaken her now?” he 
questioned. “Surely she needs rest and the 

189 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


morning will be time enough to bring her 
misery. ’’ 

‘ ‘ I agree with you , 9 9 Alan admitted. ‘ * I have 
no intention of disturbing her with this matter 
until after breakfast to-morrow.” 

“That is best,” Romero straightened up and 
took a step towards the door. “And now will 
you kindly return to me my revolver which I 
can see is in your pocket. Surely you do not 
suspect that I would kill you. We are not 
bandits whatever you may think of us. ’ 9 

Alan hesitated, fingering the weapon, then he 
let it slip again into his pocket. 

“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it,” he said. 

The lamplight hit Romero square and his 
eyes gleamed dully. Quickly Alan stepped back, 
awaiting an attack. But something in the 
Spaniard seemed to cave in, he gave a nervous 
laugh with a queer ring in it, and deliberately 
thrust his right hand into the side pocket of 
his coat. 

Alan stood watching him, every muscle drawn 
taut. He could see the man’s fingers beneath 
the cloth opening and shutting as if fighting for 
control. Suddenly, he staggered and, as Alan 

190 




THE OWNER OF THE FISHLINE 


sprang to his assistance, he pitched forward 
into his arms. 

For a second Romero gripped the doctor’s 
wrist and steadied himself as he swayed back 
and forth. Then, recovering, he drew himself 
to his full height. 

“You shook me up pretty badly.’’ He gave 
a short mirthless laugh. 

“I am sorry all this has happened,” Alan 
apologized. “Really, I do not wish to inter¬ 
fere.” 

“It is all right,” Romero replied in a more 
friendly tone. “I too regret the unpleasant¬ 
ness. And I realize, Dr. Lethbridge, that you 
have acted rightly in insisting on showing the 
papers to my cousin. Good night, senor, till 
to-morrow at breakfast.” And, bowing cere¬ 
moniously, the Spaniard passed out into the ar¬ 
cade. 

Across the threshold he stopped and waited 
for the servant coming up the walk. Evidently 
the man’s mission to the stables had been unsuc¬ 
cessful for his voice was apologetic as he ad¬ 
dressed his master. Romero apparently reas¬ 
sured him and, as the former’s footsteps died 

191 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


away along the arcade, the Granadian entered. 
Nodding a greeting Alan sauntered over by the 
window. Against the screen the June bugs 
were beating with a musical whirring of their 
invisible wings. Out to sea a gull was calling 
shrilly. With a shake of his head Alan turned 
towards the door. As he passed the table his 
foot stepped on some object on the floor and 
his ankle turned with a wrench that caused him 
to utter an ejaculation of pain. Stooping, he 
picked up a brier pipe. Evidently it belonged 
to the man who had just gone out and had prob¬ 
ably dropped from his pocket during the strug¬ 
gle. Certainly it had not been on the floor when 
they had searched the apartment. Hurrying 
out to the arcade Alan continued to Romero’s 
door. As he passed the Spaniard’s window, 
through which a shaft of light cut the blackness 
of the court, he glanced casually again at the 
object in his hand. With a start he brought up 
short, turned, and, entering his own room, lit 
the lamp. Bringing the small red bowl close 
to the warm rays he examined it. It was just 
an ordinary pipe, of a shape known asa“ bull¬ 
dog,” like thousands for sale at every cigar 

192 




THE OWNER OF THE FISHLINE 


store. Where the stem fitted into the bowl, 
however, the wood had cracked and its owner 
had bound it with ten or twelve windings of fine 
silk cord. But what made Alan’s hand tremble 
slightly was that this cord was the same red and 
white fishline that he had found clutched in the 
death-stiffened grasp of the old senor. 


o 

BIT. 


o>. 


1^4 




CHAPTER XIX 


THE ATTACK IN THE DARK 


W ITH a shake of his head Alan care¬ 
fully drew together the long cur¬ 
tains so as to shut off from a per¬ 
son without any view of the room. A breeze 
coming through the open windows flapped 
the heavy brocade against the thick bars. 
Crossing to the door he hesitated. Then, with 
a shrug of his shoulders, he shot the bolt. 
It seemed absurd, yet, after all, the Spaniard’s 
anger had died with suspicious suddenness and 
it was better to take no chances. The psychol¬ 
ogy of these people was different and even if he 
had no revolver the man might make an attack 
on him, especially if, as seemed likely, he had 
been concerned in the senor’s death. Fortu¬ 
nately he was warned and armed and it was up 
to him. As he crossed to the bed, he smiled 
grimly. Here he was on his vacation, bar- 

194 


THE ATTACK IN THE DARK 


ricaded in a room, with the prospect of sudden 
death before twenty-four hours had gone. 

Kemoving the automatic from his pocket, he 
broke it and examined the chambers. It was 
loaded and he stiffened at the thought that one 
of those dirty pieces of lead might be lodged 
somewhere in his body. Snapping the gun 
shut he deliberately laid it on the night stand. 
As he stooped and the light of the lamp fell on 
his sleeve, he gave a start and bent forward. 
On his right wrist, extending up to the base of 
the little finger, four streaks of some curious 
chrome yellow caught his eye. Bending closer, 
the pungent odor of ripe bananas rose to his 
nostrils. Hurrying to the desk, he brought 
back under the lamp the square of linen cut 
from the sheet of the dead senor. 

4 ‘It’s the same stuff,’’ he muttered. “How 
did it get on my hands ? ’ ’ 

Crossing the room, he examined the wash- 
stand. The basin and the pitcher were empty. 
The servant had evidently neglected to fill the 
latter after Alan’s efforts before dinner to re¬ 
move some traces of sulphuric acid used in the 
post-mortem. The soiled towel showed, how- 

195 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


ever, no marks. As he reached for the bell 
cord by his bed, his glance rested on his watch. 

“It’s past midnight/’ he murmured to him¬ 
self. “ Anyway, it was the white flakes that 
were poisonous. Only, how did those marks 
get on my hands 1 ’ y 

Removing his shoes, he threw himself on the 
outside of the bed. Propped against the pillow, 
he stared thoughtfully at the high, bare wall 
opposite. The oil was running low and the 
light flickered, casting bobbing shadows on the 
somber background. His brain was in a whirl, 
going over the events of the day. Slowly, his 
body slipped until his feet pressed against the 
heavy mahogany baseboard, while his head bent 
forward and his hand hung limp by his side. 
Presently the lamp sputtered and went out. 
Through the cracks of the drawn curtains a 
faint glimmer of starlight filtered in. From 
away over the Great Forest the weird call of 
a loon rose above the muffled pounding of the 
surf. 

On the lips of the dozing man a smile played. 
He rolled his head back and forth on the pil¬ 
low; then turned on his right side. To his 

196 




THE ATTACK IN THE DARK 


dreaming ears came the sound of her voice, 
sweet and low like an old ’cello, harmonizing 
with the soft whistling floating in through the 
chinks of the stirring curtains. 

With a start Alan awoke. Somewhere out in 
the night a call for help rang out, the agonized 
cry of a woman. Struggling to his elbow, he 
listened, every nerve quivering. A heavy body 
went crashing through the shrubbery and there 
came the sound of steps, running. As he 
hitched himself up on both elbows, a hand 
parted the long curtains over the window and 
the faint glimmer from the court lit up the 
gleaming tube of a flash. Slowly the disk of 
light crawled across the floor until it reached 
the four-poster, then up over the chintz 
flounces until its rays struck him full. Blinded 
for a second Alan lay still, blinking. Then, like 
a stag at night, he gazed fascinated as, beside 
the silver tube, was thrust the ugly round muz¬ 
zle of a stubby black revolver. Paralyzed, un¬ 
able to move a limb, his fingers alone kept grip¬ 
ping and twisting the coverlet. As his mouth 
opened wide there came a roaring crash, a splin¬ 
ter pricked his wrist and the acrid smell of pow- 

197 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


der filled the room. A second flash of flame 
streaked the darkness; he bounded from the 
bed and flattened himself against the wall a few 
feet from the window. Clutching at the plas¬ 
ter, he reeled back, dizzy, gasping. For, 
through the opening in the curtains he had seen 
pressed against the heavy bars the face of 
Paloma de la Guerra. 




CHAPTER XX 


GONE 


W ITH an effort Alan steadied himself 
and glanced towards the window. 
The flash was still darting over 
the floor, seeking him out. Some one out¬ 
side was calling his name. Stiffening hack, he 
groped his way along the wall and cautiously 
pushed back the huge bolt. Then, flinging wide 
the heavy door, he bounded across the arcade, 
hurdled the low railing and crashed into the 
shrubbery beneath. Recovering his balance he 
was plowing blindly through the bushes when 
a stake knocked him spinning, full length. 
Grunting for breath, he staggered to his feet. 
Footsteps were running down the walk and a 
woman’s voice kept frantically shouting his 
name. As he lurched forward, dizzy, reeling, 
a hand seized him. 

“It’s all right,” Paloma called in his ear. 
“You understand, Alan? It’s all right.” 

199 


THE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


Turning, he clutched her wrists and held her 
off. “Why did you do it?” he muttered 
hoarsely. 

The girl tried to pull away, a shadow flitting 
across her face. Then, with a hysterical little 
sob, she relaxed her hold. 

“Holy Mary!—you thought that?” she whis¬ 
pered. “You do not understand, my Alan. 
Come with me!” 

He hesitated, holding her back. Then, still 
gripping her wrists, he let her lead him doubt¬ 
fully wondering, up the steps to the arcade. 
The still lighted flash lay beneath his window, 
its soft rays leaking out along the flagstones. 
A few feet beyond, the dull satiny outline of the 
revolver showed. Tearing one hand from his 
grasp the girl stooped, picked up the light and 
shoved the silver tube between the bars. 

“Look!” she urged. 

Through the parted curtains he could see the 
round yellow disk flitting across the floor and 
up over the high sides of the bed. The depres¬ 
sion was still there where, but a moment before, 
his head and shoulders had sunk into the pil¬ 
low. Just below, the brown oak sideboards 

200 




GONE 


were splintered with the impact of a bullet. As 
the bright circle again slipped down the chintz 
flounces and stopped on the floor beneath, Alan 
drew in his breath and pressed his face against 
the bars. 

“Good God!” he gasped. “What is it?” 

On the matting something was lying, the 
oozing carcass of a lizard. Cigar shaped, about 
two feet long, its body was sunk down squat be¬ 
tween the joints of its stubby legs. The skin, 
banded in yellow and black, was covered with 
pimply bumps as if some loathsome disease 
were rotting it away. From a gaping hole in 
its sides the intestines were seeping, covering 
the matting with a reddish, purplish stain. The 
head was flat and blunt as a mud turtle, the eyes 
like glassy shoe buttons; while through the 
froth-fringed mouth showed rows of needled 
teeth. 

“Isn’t it a Gila?” Alan’s voice was dry, his 
gaze glued on the gruesome mass. 

“We pronounce it ‘heela,’ ” the girl replied. 
He could feel her trembling slightly. “How did 
you recognize it?” 

“I specialized in toxicology in medical school. 

201 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Reptile poisons were a part. We had a pair of 
those brutes for experimental work.” 

4 4 Then you know they are dangerous ? 99 

4 4 Their bite is absolutely fatal. Was this one 
attacking me?” 

4 4 Its teeth were but a few inches from you 
when I fired . 9 9 

4 4 Then you—” he raised her hand to his lips. 
44 Thank you, Paloma,” he said simply. 44 I 
didn 9 t understand. ’ 9 

44 You were close to death,” she murmured, 
4 4 so very close. ’’ And she pressed his arm con¬ 
vulsively against her heart. 

Along the court a door slammed and Dona 
Mencia and Hakamura, awakened by the shots, 
came hurrying around the arcade. 

44 What has happened, Paloma?” she in¬ 
quired anxiously as, huddled in a cloak slipped 
over her night clothes, she came up to them. 

44 Dr. Lethbridge has had a close call,” the 
girl explained. 4 4 1 shot a Gila in his room just 
as it was climbing over the flounces of his bed 
to attack him as he slept.” 

44 Holy Virgin, I am so glad, doctor,” the old 
lady exclaimed earnestly, taking Alan’s hand 

202 




GONE 


in both of her own. i i But, Paloma, ’ ’ she turned 
to the girl, ‘ 1 tell me how-’’ 

“Just a minute, dear,” Paloma drew the 
cloak more closely around her aunt’s frail 
shoulders. 

“Hakamura,” she turned to the diminutive 
Oriental. “Something very serious has hap¬ 
pened and I want Mr. Gilmore at the hacienda 
right away. Go down to his quarters and ask 
him to present himself here at once. You un¬ 
derstand—at once ! 9 9 

As the Japanese ran down the steps, she 
turned to the older woman and slipped her arm 
through hers. 

“You will take your death out here,” she in¬ 
sisted. “Come to my room, and, while I am 
dressing, I will tell you all about what has hap¬ 
pened; then you must sleep again. And, doc¬ 
tor,” she called back as the two women drew 
away along the arcade. “Please wait for me. 
Our foreman will be up soon and I should wish 
the favor of your counsel. And, while I think 
you are safe for the moment, please stay in the 
darkness here and be watchful.” 

Stretching himself out on the bench by the 

203 






TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


railing, Alan puffed meditatively on his brier. 
Heela! Like a flash the thought of Don Al¬ 
varez ’ last words, “He—he—he’ll,” crossed his 
mind. Gila—heela, Paloma had just pro¬ 
nounced the word. Evidently the dying man 
was merely trying to say that a Gila monster 
had carried death to him. Alan nodded 
thoughtfully. It was all clear now. The poison 
in the blood, the prick on his wrist like a hypo¬ 
dermic puncture. After biting the senor, the 
reptile had probably slipped out unnoticed and 
had been lurking in the undergrowth until im¬ 
pelled to attack him. It was all so simple. The 
mystery was solved. How fortunate that his 
suspicions against Eomero had not been voiced. 
But where was the Spaniard? Surely the 
shots must have awakened him. He rose 
quickly as the flash came hurriedly along the 
arcade and Paloma, fully dressed, stood before 
him. 

“Thank God!” she burst out, in a relieved 
tone. “Beally, I should not have left you even 
for a minute.” 

“You are overstrung,” Alan reassured her. 
“There is no danger now.” 

204 






GONE 


‘‘You do not comprehend,’’ she returned, 
serious. 

“But I do!” he protested. “That reptile 
got in your father’s room just as it did in mine 
and-’ ’ 

i i Pardon, my friend, ’ ’ she interrupted. * 1 But 
you do not know that the Gila has his home only 

in the desert of the Southwest. There are none 
on Corona del Mar.” 

“But there must be, else how did one get 
into my room?” 

“It did not get there, it was put there.” 

“But are you sure?” 

“Come!” She walked over to the door and 
threw once again the circlet of light on the ooz¬ 
ing mass on the floor. 

“Look more carefully!” she urged. “Gilas 
do not come into this world with fifteen feet of 
red and white fishline tied to each hind leg. ’ ’ 

“Good God!” The man’s voice died away 
like the creak of a rusty hinge. 

“Notice that the lines trail away over there 
to the window where some one held them 
through the bars ready to draw the creature 
back once the thing was done.” 

205 






TEE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


‘ i That explains the lack of any trace of how 
yonr father met his death/’ Alan mused. 

“Yes,” Paloma agreed. “And when the poi¬ 
son began working, it acted so quickly that he 
evidently was only able to call out before he 
began writhing on the floor.” 

“But did you see who it was holding those 
lines when you came up to my window? And 
how did you-” 

“Let us go to the living room!” Paloma in¬ 
terrupted. “And while we are waiting for 
Bart, I will tell you what happened.” 

“But your cousin?” 

She looked at him for a moment, a curious 
expression in her eyes. 

‘ ‘ His room is empty, ’’ she said finally. * 6 He 
is gone.” 





CHAPTER XXI 


BAD BLOOD 


W ITHIN the lofty apartment the fire 
was still glowing in the great fire¬ 
place. Lighting the tall iron lamp, 
Paloma took an ancient brass bellows and vig¬ 
orously fanned the embers to a flame. Pres¬ 
ently a crackling fire was roaring up the chim¬ 
ney. Settling back into a corner of the sofa, 
the girl tucked her feet up and motioned to a 
place beside her. 

“I pray you, smoke your pipe!” she urged, 
the dancing reflection playing on the glossy 
sheen of her hair. 

Alan packed down the tobacco in the bowl and 
puffed it vigorously into flame. 

‘ ‘ Come, tell me! * * he said. 

“When I left Romero,” Paloma began, “I 
went directly to my room and sleep came soon. 
But, in the night, I awoke and red lights went 
darting before my eyes and I kept going over 

207 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


and over the happenings of the day; father’s 
death, the suspicions against Bart and my talk 
with my cousin. It must have been about two 
in the morning when I heard a soft, curious 
whistle as if coming from far away. I would 
have thought nothing about it, for sometimes 
the call of the gulls at night is weird and much 
like it. But all at once there hit my mind what 
you had said about the strange whistle on the 
night father was killed. 

“I tried to smother my worry, telling myself 
that I was a stupid, foolish one and that I must 
get some sleep. But somehow the dread kept 
gripping me until, at last, it grew so strong that 
I sprang from my bed, threw around me my 
kimono and moved over to my doorway. By 
the light of the lantern over the entrance I 
could see leaning against the grating of your 
window a black mass like a long sack of pota¬ 
toes. Stepping inside I picked up my revolver 
and flash, hurried out into the arcade and, keep¬ 
ing close, slipped along the wall. At the cor¬ 
ner I could see that the mass was a man. His 
face was pressed against the bars, his left hand 
fumbling with the grating. Now and then he 

208 





BAD BLOOD 


gave a low, soft whistle. Suddenly something 
gleamed in his right hand and, under the strain, 
I thought he had a revolver and was going to 
shoot you. I was terrified and called out for 
help. My cry startled him and, springing back¬ 
wards, he vaulted the railing as you yourself 
did. Then I could hear him tearing through 
the shrubbery and making off across the court. 
I ran along the arcade to follow him. As I 
passed, I happened to glance at your window. 
The rays from the porch lamp struck it full and 
what I saw made me stop short. An end of 
red and white fishline was hanging from the 
lowest bar. But what made me doubly startled 
was that it kept moving, slowly rising up over 
the iron. The true meaning struck me too late 
and I grabbed as the ends slid from the bar 
and tumbled to the floor inside. Springing for¬ 
ward I shoved my flash through the grating, 
pushed aside the drawn curtains and looked in. ,, 

Paloma paused, closed her eyes and shud¬ 
dered. 

“It was dreadful!” she continued at length. 
“That beast had crossed the floor and, like a 
cripple, was hunching its ugly body over the 

209 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


side boards of the bed. With a last clumsy 
lurch it had reached the level surface and was 
waddling towards your hand when I stuck my 
revolver through the bars, prayed to our God 
to carry my bullet true, and fired. ’’ 

Alan took the girl’s hand in both his own 
and looked her full in the eyes. 

“It was splendid, Paloma,” he said earnestly, 
“and I owe my life to you. For, along with the 
cobra and certain East Indian adders, the Gila 
is the most dangerous creature on earth. Now 
that I know what killed your father, I realize 
that I should have suspected the nature of those 
white disks we found on his sheet. They were 
the drops of saliva which fringe the jaws and 
are deadly poison. But I never suspected any 
animal poison because there was no trace of 
any animal and the puncture in the artery of 
the wrist was like a hypodermic. And the 
symptoms your father showed, the disintegra¬ 
tion of the ganglion cells of the spinal cord and 
the tremendous dilation of the heart and veins, 
are symptomatic of any alkaloid.” 

There were tears in the girl’s eyes as she 
glanced up at her companion. 

210 




BAD BLOOD 


“Our Holy Mary was good to us,” she said 
simply. “Only, my friend, what if I hadn’t 
come in time ?’ 9 

“Would you have cared?” Alan’s eyes ear¬ 
nest, serious, sought her own. “Tell me! 
Would you really have cared?” 

As she turned to face him she suddenly 
gripped the arm of the sofa and rose to her feet. 
For a flutter of her eyelids she stood erect, 
rigid, waves of blood sweeping across her face 
like breath on a cold mirror. Then she took a 
step towards the tall, gaunt figure who, twirling 
his hat in silent embarrassment, was standing 
in the doorway. 

i 1 Come in, Bart, ’ ’ she said quietly. ‘ ‘ Sit here 
with Dr. Lethbridge and myself. Many things 
have come to us and we must talk of what is 
best for us to do.” 

Sunk back in the center of the long sofa, the 
soft glow of the fire lighting his keen, bronzed 
features, the foreman listened closely to all that 
had occurred at the hacienda. For some time 
after Paloma had finished he was silent, his 
piercing eyes thoughtfully following the play 
of the flame phantoms dancing on the lofty 

211 



THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


walls. At length he rose, bent down to the 
hearth and knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
Then, straightening, he backed his powerful 
shoulders against the shelf of the fireplace and 
faced the man and girl on the sofa. 

“You nearly got yours, doctor,” he said 
gravely. “Thank God, he didn’t kill you.” 

“You think,” Paloma began, “that the man 
who attacked Dr. Lethbridge-” 

“Was the same that killed your dad,” he con¬ 
cluded. 

“It was—” she paused abruptly. 

He fixed her with his sharp eyes, then nodded. 

“I reckon you got it doped straight, Miss 
Paloma,” he said. “But the thing that I can’t 
figure out nowise is why he wanted to do it. 
As far as the doctor comes in, of course it’s 
jealousy and a bird like that sees red when he’s 
stirred up. But, as for the senor, why, he 
treated him like a son.” 

“Perhaps I can throw some light on that 
phase of it, ’ ’ Alan said, and he related at length 
his finding of Romero in the senor’s room ear¬ 
lier in the evening. 

“There is something in those papers that 

212 





BAD BLOOD 


makes it desperately important for your cousin 
to get hold of them,” he concluded. “Here 
they are. See what they show.” 

Paloma drew near the lamp and examined 
the long, folded piece of foolscap with the 
crumpled, dirty letter attached. As she un¬ 
dipped the latter and began to scan its pages, 
her hand trembled and her bosom rose and fell. 

“Holy Virgin, it is clear now,” she mur¬ 
mured, handing him the rumpled piece of paper. 
“Head it, it is not easy for me to explain.” 

‘‘ But it is in Spanish. ’ ’ Alan handed it back. 
“You must read it.” 

“Just a minute. I want to see what this is,” 
she said, her eyes running down the long sheet 
of foolscap. “All right,” she added, taking 
the letter. “I will translate both for you. The 
letter is dated Tia Juana, Mexico, and was writ¬ 
ten last Monday week, that is, about ten days 
ago. It is addressed to father and begins as 
follows: 

“Honored Senor, 

“Do you remember Gutierrez’ little girl who 
years ago used to hold your horse when you 
stopped by the Santa Cruz spring near the 

213 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


Rancho del Sur? Since father died, I have 
been living here in Tia Juana because Romero 
wished to avoid any talk until we were mar¬ 
ried. But, yesterday, he came to me and told 
me it was not to be, as he was engaged to 
Senorita Paloma. Perhaps you can guess what 
he means to me and what claim I have on him. 
He is gone from my life now; that I know. 
And, without him, senor, there is, God forgive 
me, only one thing I can do. 

“But, since I was a little girl, I have loved 
my senorita and I do not wish to go away with¬ 
out trying to keep her from what has come to 
me. I do not write this in hatred or revenge. 
I still love him and shall keep his secret and 
mine from all in this world but you. 

“Pray for me, senor. 

“Your unhappy, 

“Juanita Palos.’’ 

“Good God! Did she kill herself?” Bart 
burst out. 

“Poor child,” Paloma said tenderly. “Nina 
told me yesterday that her body was brought 
over last Friday and buried by some relatives 
of hers at the Rancho del Sur. Nina also said 
that father was present at the burial, which sur¬ 
prised me. That is probably what upset him 
so last Friday as my aunt noticed. You are 

214 




BAD BLOOD 


aware what pride he had in the family honor 
and he would have felt the responsibility as 
resting on his blood.’ ’ 

“But that dirty dog hasn’t a drop of real 
de la Guerra blood in his veins,” Bart muttered. 
“He’s Mexican, and rotten Mexican at that.” 

“Did any one suspect anything?” Alan in¬ 
quired. 

“Evidently not, for Nina would have heard 
and she said nothing to me. But you can un¬ 
derstand how my father would have felt and 
why he decided on what he had made up his 
mind to do in San Diego.” 

“What is that?” Alan questioned. 

“His plan is shown in this paper.” Paloma 
pointed to the long sheet of foolscap lying on 
the table. “It is a draft of a new will and in 
it father does not mention Romero, except to 
grant him a small pension on the express pro¬ 
vision that he sign an agreement never again to 
set foot on Corona del Mar. By the will now 
lying in father’s vault in San Diego he receives 
the Rancho del Sur. Father was going over to 
San Diego to get his lawyer, a Mexican notary, 

215 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


to draw up this new will and destroy the other, 
thereby disinheriting Romero.” 

‘‘Would to God he had done it,” the foreman 
growled. 1 ‘Still it won’t do him much good 
when a rope gets squeezing that neck of his.” 

“Of course, the whole affair is clear now,” 
Alan said. “When the senor received Juani¬ 
ta’s letter last Wednesday, he sent for Romero 
and told him that he could not marry Miss 
Paloma and that he was going to cut him off in 
his will. He also told him that, on the follow¬ 
ing Wednesday, he wanted him to accompany 
him to San Diego where his lawyer would draw 
up a paper for him to sign, by which, in return 
for a certain monthly allowance, he was to agree 
never again to set foot on Corona del Mar. 

“Evidently the senor, from family pride, did 
not wish the reasons for his nephew’s leaving 
known and both agreed not to speak of it to 
Dona Mencia and to make some excuse for the 
trip and later for his failure to return. It was 
then that Romero suddenly realized that, if Don 
Alvarez failed to reach San Diego alive, the old 
will, by which he inherited the Rancho del Sur, 
was still valid. So he planned to kill him the 

216 




BAD BLOOD 


night before he left. And he also realized that, 
if he could get rid of him in some way that 
would not cause suspicion to fall on him, he, as 
his heir, could get hold of the senor’s papers 
and destroy any evidence against himself; in 
which case no one would be the wiser, for even 
the members of the household like Dona Mencia 
had no suspicion that the relations between 
Senor de la Guerra and his nephew were not 
of the friendliest. 

“It was then that the idea of the Gila oc¬ 
curred to him as a means of making way with 
his uncle, not only without drawing suspicion 
on himself but without leading any one to be¬ 
lieve that murder had been committed. For, 
without such a suspicion in his mind, any doc¬ 
tor who viewed the body after death would 
never have noticed the puncture on the wrist 
and would promptly have said * apoplexy.’ 
Especially as Romero had that fishline on the 
animal ’s legs with which to draw it back and 
leave no trace. 

“Everything was all set then for Tuesday, 
the night before the senor and Romero were to 
leave for San Diego. This was the best night 

217 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


because Romero would naturally be staying at 
this end of the island so as to get an early start 
next day and his presence would excite no sus¬ 
picion. But late Saturday evening, he hap¬ 
pened to go down to the boat and Captain Tan¬ 
ner handed him your letter and telegram. 
Sensing their contents, he opened them and 
learned that you were to arrive in San Diego 
Sunday afternoon and would be over here late 
that night. He realized that he was in a pre¬ 
dicament. It was too late for him to ride down 
to the Rancho del Sur and get the Gila that eve¬ 
ning. Yet you would have seen your father be¬ 
fore the following night and, if anything hap¬ 
pened to the senor, you would at once suspect 
Romero. Since he didn’t dare risk anv other 
way of killing your father, there was only one 
thing to do and that was to prevent your ar¬ 
rival. ’ ’ 

“You got it doped right, doctor,” Bart 
nodded thoughtfully. “I remember him talk¬ 
ing to two fellers out on the pier just as the 
Acapulco was pulling out. It was falling dark 
but it was them two Mexicans all right. He 

218 




BAD BLOOD 


rode on home afterwards. I recollect seeing 
him heading south.” 

“Later, he would probably have staged a pre¬ 
tended rescue/’ Paloma added. “Heaven 
knows I would have been grateful to him, espe¬ 
cially with my father dead of apoplexy, as they 
would have called it . 9 9 

“Next time I saw him was coming from the 
hacienda early Tuesday morning,” Bart said 
thoughtfully. “He had probably brought up 
the Gila and hid it . 9 9 

“And then he saw our boat,” Alan concluded. 
“At first he must have thought all his plans 
were blocked. But he at once found out that 
you did not suspect him of having any hand in 
carrying you off. And when Dona Mencia 
proposed that you wait until the next day be¬ 
fore worrying your father about it, Romero 
jumped at the chance that my own presence 
might prevent the senor from telling you any¬ 
thing before he retired.” 

“And that’s just what happened,” Bart said 
sadly. 

“But where did he get the Gila?” Paloma 
asked. 


219 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Probably over in Arizona,’’ Bart answered. 
“He was hunting over there last summer.” 

“But how do you suppose he got the idea to 
use the animal?” 

“You must remember, Miss Paloma, that his 
mother was a Mexican woman and using Gilas 
to get rid of folks they hate is old stuff with the 
Mexicans. I seen it worked once on a peon in 
my section gang when I was on construction 
down in Sinaloa province. One greaser had 
struck another and the man managed to smear 
the peon’s blankets with a paste of lizards’ eggs 
of some sort and then turned the Gila in the 
tent as he slept. The beast feeds on these eggs 
and likes ’em better than the devil loves a sin¬ 
ner and will make for ’em a mile off. The peon 
rolled on the Gila as he was trying to suck some 
of the stuff from the blanket and the reptile 
promptly bit him. He died in half an hour. ’ ’ 

“That accounts for the yellow stains on 
Senor Alvarez’ bed clothes,” Alan concluded. 

“Surest thing you know,” Bart nodded. 
“And, as for you, he probably had a tin of this 
egg paste in his pocket and managed to rub 
some on his palm. Then, when he had his 

220 




BAD BLOOD 


scrap with you, he pretended to be falling and 
grabbed your wrist and smeared you with it 
without your noticing.” 

“But you would have thought that the rep¬ 
tile would have bitten him,” Alan remarked. 

“Not if he wore gloves,” Bart answered posi¬ 
tively. 

“But did you not hear anything just before 
father cried out?” Paloma urged. “Surely he 
must have made some noise.” 

“I did not hear a sound except a sort of queer 
whistling, soft and far away.” 

“That was Romero exciting the critter,” 
Bart said. “And, when he heard you jump out 
of bed, he jerked him back and skipped. But 
evidently the senor had grabbed the beast when 
it attacked him and gripped hold the fish cord. 
Then, as your cousin pulled, the line on one foot 
broke and he pulled him back by the other, 
clapped him in his box and sprang into the 
shrubbery . 9 ’ 

“But how could he escape without being no¬ 
ticed? And what did he do with the Gila?” 

“He just hid the brute’s box in those thick 
bamboos below the steps and then crawled back 

221 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


unnoticed to his room. The doctor and Haka- 
mnra took a long time trying to break in and 
that left Romero heaps of time to get into bed 
and pretend to be asleep.’’ 

“But why wasn’t the Gila’s box found?” the 
girl objected. ‘ ‘ The underbrush was searched. ’ ’ 

“Yes, but who did the looking?” Alan re¬ 
minded her. 

“You’re right,” she nodded her head thought¬ 
fully. “Romero did the searching and assured 
us that there was nothing there. He probably 
used that opportunity to push the box further 
into those bamboos where no one would ever 
see it and where he had the animal at hand 
when he attempted to kill Hr. Lethbridge.” 

“Well, what are we doing to do?” Alan ques¬ 
tioned. 

6 ‘ Go and get him, ’ ’ the girl flashed, her teeth 
set firm. “Nothing falls into the mouth of a 
sleeping fox.” 

The foreman shook his head grimly. “He has 
a mean bunch of cutthroats at the Rancho del 
Sur who will follow him anywhere,” he said 
dubiously. “And our Granadians ain’t much 
in the fightin’ game.” 


222 




BAD BLOOD 


“You’re right, Bart.” Paloma rose. “But 
we’ll fight them just the same. You stay here 
and I will go round to the kitchen and get some 
coffee and bread. Then we will talk out what 
we had best do. I will be back in a few min¬ 
utes.” 




CHAPTER XXII 


THE CUFF ON THE FLAGSTONES 


wall rose the faint, rusty squawking of 
the gulls, fighting over their early morning 
meal. Alan and his companion smoked in si¬ 
lence, staring into the great fireplace, absorbed 
in thoughts of the night just past and in plans 
for the coming day. Once the foreman bent 
down into the hearth and stirred to life the 
dying embers, then stood over the flame, wel¬ 
come in the chilling fog of early morning. Ten 
minutes passed, fifteen minutes; Alan glanced 
uneasily at his watch. Suddenly both men, 
moved by the same impulse, started to their feet 
and made for the entrance door. 

“It's all right! There’s a light in her 
room,” Alan exclaimed in a relieved tone as 
they hurried around the court. 4 ‘For a mo¬ 
ment, though, I was uneasy at her delay.” 

224 


T HE dirt-gray dawn came seeping in 
through the tall windows. Up the sea 


THE CUFF ON THE FLAGSTONES 


A knock at the window and the calling of the 
girl’s name brought no response from within. 

44 See! There’s a light in the kitchen,” Bart 
called hack, as he vaulted the railing and ran 
across the court to the opposite wing. On the 
massive oaken table a lamp was sputtering in 
the draught from the open door. On the far¬ 
ther wall a tall clock ticked methodically amidst 
the shining rows of pots and kettles. But the 
great dingy room was still and deserted. 
Paloma had disappeared. 

Just inside the threshold Alan stooped and 
his face went clay green. On the well-worn 
flagstones lay a small black cuff of native lace, 
a part of the blouse the girl had just been 
wearing. 

“By God, doctor, he’s got her!” the foreman 
swore. “What fools we were to leave her out 
of our sight!’ 7 

“Do you think—” Alan began. 

“Have you a gun?” Bart cut him short the 
drawl gone from his voice. 

Alan threw open his coat and showed Ro¬ 
mero’s automatic slung across his chest. 

“Good!” Bart snapped out. “Now hurry, 

225 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


man, for once lie gets to the Rancho del Sur it’s 
all off. ’’ 

At the hitching post the foreman stopped 
short. 

“I might have guessed it,” he muttered. 
“That dirty skunk has swiped my horse.” 

He stood there an instant peering out across 
the plateau, his narrowed eyes striving to pierce 
the dripping veil of fog. Then, with Alan at 
his heels, he ran along the steep road that 
dropped down a hundred yards to the low-lying 
stone stables of the hacienda. On the nail- 
studded door of the main building Bart beat 
with both fists. Presently, a sleepy cattleman 
stuck his head from the window above. 

“What the hell?” he began. Then, with an 
oath of surprise, drew back and his bare feet 
sounded thumping down the stairs. A rattle 
of chains, the great doors rolled into the walls 
and Jim, in a flannel night shirt, stood blinking 
in the opening. 

‘ ‘ Quick! Saddle Pinto! ’ ’ Bart ordered, as he 
shot past the half-dazed cowboy and plunged 
down the row of dimly lighted stalls. Jim, blub¬ 
bering questions, followed and Alan could hear 

226 




THE CUFF ON THE FLAGSTONES 


him cursing violently as a sliver stuck in his 
bare toe. Soon the foreman reappeared, lead¬ 
ing Capitan, Don Alvarez’ favorite. His com¬ 
panion was having trouble with Pinto, who, ex¬ 
cited by the unaccustomed call, sidled and 
pranced. Skillfully the men worked, straining 
and panting while they drew tight the cinches 
of the heavy saddles. 

Finally Bart, gathering up the reins, gave 
one spring and landed on the back of the great 
black stallion. As the horse, excited, bolted for 
the door, he roughly drew him on his haunches 
and leaned towards Jim. 

i ‘Tell Doha Mencia,” he ordered, ‘ 4 that Ro¬ 
mero has kidnaped Miss Paloma and is mak¬ 
ing for the Rancho del Sur. Say the doctor 
and I are trailing him. If we don’t catch him 
before he reaches home, we will have to come 
back for help. So get the men in off the range, 
arm ’em and send ’em down to the main corral. 
"We’ve probably got to fight them greasers and 
we want to be ready. ’ ’ 

Wheeling, he gave Capitan his head and shot 
through the stable door. Swinging into his sad¬ 
dle, Alan dashed across the yard in full pur- 

227 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


suit. At the top of the rise by the hitching 
post Bart reined in and, slipping the bridle 
through his arm, quickly dismounted. Stoop¬ 
ing, his keen eyes carefully studied the ground, 
soft from the shower of the evening before. 
Moving to the right and left like a dog on the 
scent, he finally gave a grunt, vaulted on Capi- 
tan and started across the plateau on the road 
to the Great Forest. 

“I’ve picked it up, doctor,’’ he called out as 
they galloped side by side. “He’s taken the 
forest trail skirting the mountains instead of 
the direct road by the village. We’ve got a 
chance to overhaul him. Come on!” 




CHAPTER XXIII 
THE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 

HE sun had risen in the east, dissolv¬ 
ing the fog into a light mist that a sea 
breeze blew in wisps across the plateau. 
Beneath the dome of pines on the edge of the 
forest Bart again swung to the ground. Bend¬ 
ing over the soft dirt, he pointed to what looked 
to Alan like a meaningless jumble of hoof 
marks. 

“It’s as plain as daylight,” he declared in a 
tone of satisfaction. “See them tracks heavier 
sunk than the rest? Notice how the off front 
foot is different from the other? That’s my 
horse, Chubby. She cast her shoe on me com¬ 
ing up from the village to-night. He’s taken 
this back trail for fear of meeting some of our 
herders on the straight road across the range.” 

“Do you think we can overhaul him?” Alan 
questioned anxiously, as they plunged deep into 
the forest. 



229 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


1 —■ 1 1 1 lini ' IIW 

“He lias a half-hour start and as fine a horse 
as ever was,” Bart replied. “But Chubby is 
carrying double and that’s some handicap. 
We’ve got a fighting chance, doctor, and you 
bet we’ll take it.” 

As swiftly as the winding trail would permit 
they trotted beneath the towering pines, whose 
lacelike tips were touched with the soft salmon 
glow of the rising sun. The fog had melted 
away and the air was crisp and sharp like a 
frosty New England morning. The horses, 
fresh and eager, bounded over the ground with 
the smooth rhythm of well-oiled machines. At 
a fork they bore left, leaving on their right the 
path to the giant grove where Paloma had 
brought Alan on the preceding afternoon. How 
long ago that seemed! Ages ago, somewhere in 
the shadowy past. 

Would they be in time? A surging dread 
flooded Alan’s eyes with a pounding pressure 
that made the trail dance blurred and indis¬ 
tinct. Unconsciously, he dug his heels deep and 
Pinto, shying forward, bumped Capitan over 
against the jagged outcroppings of the cliff. 

“There’s no sense in doing that, doctor,” 

230 




TEE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 


Bart remonstrated gruffly, again guiding his 
mount up the trail. “You’ll break your horse’s 
legs if you try to go faster than we are doing 
now. It’s too blamed rough! ’ ’ 

They were following the tumbling course of 
a swiftly running mountain stream. At times 
their way skirted shooting bunches of foam; 
£igain it wound high up on the steep slopes, with 
glimpses of the soapy waters far down in the 
gorge below. Finally, leaving the river, the 
trail began to zigzag up the Mountain of the 
Sun, whose domelike peak, veiled by the morn¬ 
ing mist, seemed gigantic, obscure, nebulous. 

Around a narrow elbow of the cliff Capitan 
set his forefeet with a jerk and snorted. Just 
ahead, stirred from its morning nap, a rattle¬ 
snake raised its puffed head and hissed; then 
slipped away noiselessly into a clump of grease- 
wood. The path kept mounting steadily. Far 
below them the river wound, a silver thread 
among the black crags and boulders of the 
strangely sculptured canon. In the stillness of 
the morning its murmur rose soothing and soft. 

At a sharp turn Bart jerked up his mount, 
gave an oath of astonishment and slid to the 

231 






THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


ground. They had come to a fork in the trail. 
The left branch, broad and well beaten, kept 
straight on to the south around the shoulder 
of the mountain. The right, narrow and rank 
with weeds, shot up a steep ravine until it 
seemed to bump bluntly into the straight cliff 
wall of the great dome of the mountain. 

“There’s no doubt about it,” the foreman 
growled, bending over the hoof marks in the 
sticky, adobe soil. “That feller’s taken the 
right fork. There’s only been one horse over 
the road since the rain last night and you can 
see that it’s my Chubby with her off front shoe 
gone. But what beats me is why he should 
branch off into this bypath when it’s the wide 
trail there to the left that leads to the Rancho 
del Sur.” 

“Where does this path end?” Alan ques¬ 
tioned, running his eyes up its tortuous wind¬ 
ings. 

“Nowhere,” his companion declared. “It’s 
a blind trail that follows up this ravine and 
stumbles plunk into that precipice at the foot 
of the dome.” 

“But isn’t there some means of Romero 

232 





THE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 


reaching home that way? Couldn’t he get over 
the mountain?” 

“Not a chance! You can see for yourself. 
There’s a thousand-foot straight rise to the 
summit from the ledge up there where the path 
ends, and not even a lizard could stick its claws 
into that slippery granite. No, sir! There’s 
no way out of this ravine except by where we ’re 
standing this minute.” 

“Then you think we have him cornered?” 
Alan asked, his voice eager. 

“It sure does look that way,” the foreman 
shook his head dubiously. “Only, somehow, 
doctor, I just can’t believe it.” 

“But why,” Alan objected, as the spare, lean 
figure climbed into the saddle and they turned 
their mounts up the steep incline. “Why was 
this trail ever built if it leads nowhere?” 

“Well! It used to lead somewhere. That’s 
the answer. You can’t see it from here, but 
on the ledge to the left of that waterfall there’s 
a big cave hollered out of the cliff. The herd¬ 
ers camp in it once in a while and they call it 
‘The Painted Cave.’ They gave it this name 
because it was built by some natives called 

233 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


Huicholes from the mainland who lived here 
long before the whites came and daubed up the 
walls with hunting pictures of men and ani¬ 
mals. And at one end there’s a chromo of a 
great big red guy that was their god. The 
senor told me once that these natives were kin 
to a people on the mainland called Aztecs and 
that they were fairly civilized. And he said 
they used this cave for a sort of temple.” 

“But this trail must have been traveled over 
recently,” Alan persisted, “or it would have 
become completely wiped out.” 

“It has,” Bart explained. “Don Alvarez 
was strong on this ruin stuff and quite often 
a highbrow from the East would blow over and 
he and the senor would nose around for a week 
at a time. That’s why he kept up this path and 
also the La Cumbre Trail that leads up the 
south side of the mountain to the ruins of a 
sun temple on the top of the dome.” 

The path was rocky and full of boulders and 
only on the rare level stretches did hoofprints 
show that a horse had passed that way. As 
they crossed back and forth up the face of the 
slope, Bart kept mumbling to himself. 

234 




THE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 


“Are you sure he isn’t armed V 9 he finally 
broke forth. 

“He wasn’t when he left the hacienda,” Alan 
declared, “because this is his revolver I am 
carrying now.” 

“I don’t see how he could have collected a 
gun anywhere,” Bart admitted. “Only this is 
no place to meet that rat if he’s got a weapon 
on him. He’s a dead shot. You’ve got to hand 
him that.” 

“Why did he come up here instead of going 
straight on?” Alan asked. “Ho you think it 
means harm to Miss Paloma?” 

“You got me, doctor. It does seem as if we 
sure had him cornered, but that feller’s not 
the breed to run into no corner as easy as this. 
It’s in between the hand and the mouth that the 
soup is spilt. So we got to be careful.” 

They had slowed to a walk now. The horses 
were breathing heavily from the steep ascent, 
their heaving sides rubbing the girths to a 
lather of creamy froth that dripped in gobs and 
hung to the grass and bushes. The path was 
narrow, nailed like a molding along the steep 
slopes of the ravine walls. Halfway along an- 

235 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


other level stretch Bart dismounted and again 
bent over some hoof marks on the trail. Of 
a sudden he looked up at Alan. 

1 ‘I’ve hooked the answer, doctor,” he ex¬ 
claimed, excitedly pointing to the ground. 
“See them marks? Notice that three of ’em 
are heavy and deep sunk, while the other, the 
one with the shoe gone, makes nearly no trace 
at all. That means that my mare went lame 
back there and that Romero knew he couldn’t 
never beat us to the Rancho del Sur by the main 
trail. That’s why he turned off up this side 
path, hoping that, if we had picked up his 
tracks, we wouldn’t notice he had turned off. 
Guess he calculates lying low somewhere up 
here all day and then trekking it home on foot 
through the bush to-night. We don’t want to 
be too sure,” he added, pressing his knees into 
the ribs of the straining horse, “but a rat with 
one hole is soon caught and somehow or other, 
doctor, I got a hunch we’re going to get our 
man. ’ ’ 

They were rising steadily, drawing nearer to 
the smooth sheer wall that formed the perpen¬ 
dicular northern face of the Mountain of the 

236 




THE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 


Sun. For several hundred feet along the base 
of this wall a level ledge projected like a shelf 
out over the ravine. At the left, where the trail 
ahead slipped up on this shelf, a group of pines 
had probed their roots down into the crevices of 
the rock and their graceful shafts and gnarled 
misshapen branches were painted in deep green 
upon the dull gray granite. At the right, far 
up above their heads, a stream leaped out from 
the bare cliff side and dropped in a graceful 
ribbon to the ledge below. The breeze of the 
morning had sprung up and, catching the nar¬ 
row filet, swayed it backward and forward, 
breaking it into tiny drops that settled like a 
mist of diamonds on the glistening rocks. 
Along the open space between the pines and 
the waterfall, cut back into the cliff, Alan could 
see a cave, whose openings were so close to¬ 
gether that the intervening rock looked like a 
row of grotesque, carved pillars. 

Swinging around a corner of the ravine, Bart 
rose in his stirrups, then turned halfway in his 
saddle. 

“Look, doctor !’’ he shouted, a note of tri- 

237 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


umph in his voice. “Thank God, we’ve got 
him! ’ ’ 

As Alan followed the pointing finger, his 
heart stopped beating for a moment, while a 
choking cry stuck in his throat. Just ahead a 
horse, completely spent, was calling on his last 
grain of strength to limp the final few yards 
up to the ledge. On the horse’s back, his hat 
gone, his hair hanging disheveled over his fore¬ 
head, sat Eomero de la Guerra. Before him 
on the pommel, bound with a heavy cow rope, 
was what looked like a bag of clothes. In his 
left hand the Spaniard was grasping a twisted 
branch of manzanita. Across the intervening 
space came the hollow thump of heavy blows as 
the rider pounded the ribs of the exhausted 
brute. 

Without taking his eyes from the horseman 
ahead, the foreman deliberately reached for his 
long-barreled Colt. Then, with a growl, he let 
it slip into the holster. 

‘ ‘ It’s too-far,” he muttered. “I might 

hit her. But-I ’ll make that- 

-pay for beating my Chubby.” 

The man ahead had reached the ledge. He 

238 











THE END OF A BLIND TRAIL 


stood out sharply beneath the pines as he swung 
from the struggling horse to the needled floor. 
Then, reaching up, he pulled the bundle from 
the pommel, slung it over his back as if it were 
a sack of grain, and started towards the open¬ 
ing of the cave. As her head swung limp over 
his shoulder, Paloma caught sight of the men 
on the trail below. Writhing, twisting in his 
grasp, she fought hard to free herself, and 
echoing out from the cliff wall came a long, 
agonized cry: 

“Alan! Bart! Help! Hel-!” 

The cry trailed away into a dull moan as the 
Spaniard, turning the girl around and holding 
her off before him, sent his fist with a crunch 
into her unprotected face. Then, again tipping 
her crumpled body over his shoulder, he disap¬ 
peared from sight over the edge of the shelf. 





CHAPTER XXIV 


THE PAINTED CAVE 

A S the long cry rang down the canon, the 
two men had slid from their stagger¬ 
ing mounts and started on a dead run 
up the last hundred yards to the ledge. Com¬ 
ing up to the’level Bart, who was leading, 
dropped to his knee and whipped out his Colt. 

‘‘Watch out!” he warned. “He may be 
armed.” 

However, the open space before the cave was 
empty, the bare rocks blistering under the beat¬ 
ing rays of the morning sun. On the opposite 
side, from far up the precipice, the waterfall 
swayed to and fro, a veil of diamond gauze. 
Stretched in the cool spray, its sides plastered 
with bloody foam, lay an exhausted cow pony. 

For a time the foreman crouched, tense, 
waiting. 

“He’s inside behind them pillars,” he mut¬ 
tered finally. “We’ll have to smoke him out.” 

240 


THE PAINTED CAVE 


Before them the cave stretched the weird 
fagade of its many openings. Within could be 
glimpsed the lofty vaulted chamber hollowed 
back into the belly of the mountain. 

“Hold on there!” Bart shouted, as his com¬ 
panion brushed by him and started on a run 
for the nearest entrance. 

“What’s the matter?” Alan asked impa¬ 
tiently, stopping in his tracks. “I’m going in 
after him.” 

“Not much you ain’t,” the foreman snapped 
out. “Leastwise you ain’t going to rush in 
that way; for even if he has no gun, he’d brain 
you with that club of his’n before your eyes 
had time to get used to the darkness.” 

“Let’s go in together, then!” Alan persisted. 

“Yes, and have him slip out through another 
opening and beat it down the trail. No, sir! 
What we’ll do is this. You kneel where you 
are and have your gun ready and your eyes 
peeled. I’ll go in through one of them open¬ 
ings in the center. And I’ll hold to the middle 
so you can see me and keep me covered. Then, 
if he makes for me, you let him have it. Or 
if he starts any hide and seek game and bolts, 

241 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


you shoot and for the love of God shoot straight. 
For even if we have Miss Paloma safe now, we 
sure don’t want that skunk to reach his bur¬ 
row. ’ 9 

“All right ,’ 9 Alan agreed. “Only I wish 
you’d let me go in after him. You know, some¬ 
how, I’d like to be the one to get him. ’ ’ 

As the foreman kept his eyes roving along 
the row of pillars, a grim smile twitched the 
corners of his mouth. 

“Well, doctor,” he drawled, “I guess you 
don’t want him no more than me. Only, it 
ain’t never been my principles to keep an am¬ 
bitious young feller down. So go to it, boy, 
only for God’s sake, be careful.” 

Gripping his revolver firmly, Alan moved 
cautiously forward. Keeping to the middle of 
the passage between the columns, he passed in 
under the dome of the lofty, vaulted chamber. 
A yard inside he dropped to one knee, his re¬ 
volver leveled, his head swinging back and 
forth along the arc of gloom before him. The 
air was chill and damp like a tomb, spreading 
the goose flesh down his sweat-soaked body. 
After the glare outside motes of orange flick- 

242 





THE PAINTED CAVE 


ered and darted in the choking blackness. He 
drew his head down between his shoulders and 
waited, braced. He was beginning to see dimly 
now and the orange flashes no longer danced 
before his eyes. Overhead the curve of the 
vault showed faint in the wan reflection creep¬ 
ing in between the pillars. Around him, some¬ 
where in the gray fog, the man was lurking, 
and Alan strained to catch the rumor of a foot¬ 
fall or the rustle of a sleeve; no sound broke 
the silence but the pumping of his own heart and 
the quick intake of damp air through his half¬ 
open lips. 

Unmindful of Bart’s warning he began to 
grope forward towards the wall at the right, 
every nerve on the alert to sense the blow com¬ 
ing from he knew not whence. Suddenly he 
stiffened back in his tracks, holding his breath. 
Out of the darkness ahead a gruesome, mon¬ 
strous figure swelled up like a billowed night¬ 
mare of his childhood, like a demon Rackshas 
of the East Indian fairy tales. With a grim 
smile he relaxed. Of course, it was only the 
wall painting of the Mexican god Bart had 
spoken of. But, catching as it did the dirty 

243 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


light sneaking in between the pillars, the mis¬ 
shapen, square-limbed creature seemed to have 
the quiver of life in its loose joints and to be 
stepping flat-footed through the even granite of 
the end wall. The painting was crudely done 
in vermilion pigments with the eyes and teeth 
and hair in brown ocher. And where the navel 
should have been was a bowl-shaped disk 
painted black and covered with curious hiero¬ 
glyphics and figures. All at once there flashed 
through Alan’s mind a day of his boyhood when 
his father and he had stopped off at El Paso on 
their way to Arizona. In the afternoon they 
had crossed into Mexico and had bought from 
a Juarez dealer in old things a small Aztec idol. 
He could see it now atop the bookcase in his 
study in Eighty-first street and, just above the 
navel, was the same bowl-shaped disk that his 
father had informed him was an Aztec calen¬ 
dar. And the disk on his statue was also sup¬ 
ported by the arms being folded across the 
belly, giving to the creature a similar air of com¬ 
fortable benevolence, enhanced by the white- 
rimmed eyes of the gaping cockatoo face. 

Slowly Alan kept advancing, his steps sound- 

244 




THE PAINTED CAVE 


ing muffled on the slippery stone. He could see 
clearly now and his eyes, focused to the dark¬ 
ness, swept around the side walls covered with 
crude line drawings of stags and hunters. 
Here and there from the roof drops of water 
kept dripping with a dull patter on the shiny 
floor. At one place a filet trickled down and 
streaked the painted figures with a weird, dis¬ 
torting effect. 

But where were Romero and Paloma? The 
unbroken floor offered not an inch of conceal¬ 
ment and no opening interrupted the even 
smoothness of the side walls. That they were 
not in the cave was certain. It must be that, 
as he entered, they had slipped through the 
pillars further along the fagade. But why 
hadn’t Bart—? Running to the nearest en¬ 
trance, Alan burst into the open; then brought 
up suddenly, blinded by the dazzling sunlight. 
Over by the trail the tall figure was still crouch¬ 
ing, his revolver leveled. 

“Didn’t he come out?” Alan gulped, as the 
foreman rose and advanced to meet him. 

“No,” Bart answered, his eyes still sweep¬ 
ing up and down the fagade of the temple. 

245 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“But he’s not in there.” 

“Of course he is. There’s no other place for 
him to be.” 

“But I tell you I-” 

“You watch here!” the foreman ordered, 
throwing off his hat and making for the near¬ 
est entrance. 

“But I am sure he isn’t in there,” Alan pro¬ 
tested. 

“I’ll root him out,” Bart flung back as he 
crossed the open space. “Only, if he slips by 
me, don’t let him get away.” 

“Bart, I am sure-” 

But the foreman, unheeding, had disappeared 
in the gloom between the pillars. 

Over to the right the waterfall swished and 
swayed in the breeze. Now and then the anx¬ 
ious man could hear the nailed shoes of his com¬ 
panion clattering over the stone floor. Once 
he appeared in the furthermost opening to the 
right. Then as quickly vanished. Finally his 
tall gaunt form was framed between the cen¬ 
tral pillars and, his head cast down, he slowly 
crossed to where Alan rose to meet him. 

“You’re right, doctor,” he muttered de- 

246 







TEE PAINTED CAVE 


jectedly, thrusting his revolver in its holster. 
\‘They sure ain’t there.” 

“But where are they?” Alan asked. 

“That’s what I’d like to know,” the foreman 
scratched his head. “We saw ’em come into 
this rock pocket; they didn’t jump over down 
the canon; no fly could walk up that cliff wall; 
and there ain’t a tree or a rock big enough for 
a mosquito to hide behind. ’ ’ 

* ‘ Then they must he inside, ’ ’ Alan concluded. 

“Only they ain’t,” Bart retorted. “Least¬ 
wise, I couldn’t see ’em and I went over the 
whole coop careful.” 

“Let’s try together,” Alan suggested. 

“All right, but it won’t be no use. I’m not 
the feller to yell because I don’t strike water 
at the first stroke of the spade. But there just 
ain’t no place to hide in there, that’s all.” 

A half-hour search, during which the men 
probed the floor and walls, threw no light on 
the mystery. Paloma and her captor had van¬ 
ished. 



CHAPTER XXV 


SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


“V’M through,” Bart muttered finally, pull- 
1 ing out his pipe and seating himself on 
a long slab of stone beneath the painted 
image on the wall. ‘ 4 They just ain’t here and 
we might as well go back for our men and start 
for the Rancho del Sur. ” 

“He’s done us all right,” Alan agreed de¬ 
jectedly, “and I am afraid—” As his eye kept 
on over the foreman’s shoulder and up the gro¬ 
tesque figure on the wall behind, he stood star¬ 
ing, his mouth wide open. 

“What’s the matter, boy?” Bart half rose 
from the slab. “Have you gone loco?” 

“Look!” Alan gasped, pointing up at the 
wall. “The smoke from your pipe!” 

“Well, what about it?” the foreman snapped 
out. 

“Don’t you see? It’s flowing in below the 
black disk on that figure’s belly.” 

248 


SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


“What of it?” 

“Where smoke flows, there’s a draft, and 
where there ’s a draft, there ’s an opening to the 
air.’’ 

“Say, feller, do you think-?” 

“Sure.” Alan jumped up on the block be¬ 
side the foreman. “You notice, don’t you, that 
that disk isn’t painted on the wall of the cave 
like the rest of the figure, but on a layer of 
rock lying farther back? From down here, in 
the poor light, it seems as if it were flush with 
the rest of the painting. But look close and 
you’ll see it isn’t. Here, climb up and have a 
look. I think we are on the track of how they 
got away.” 

Spreading his legs, Alan braced his body 
against the wall and his companion clambered 
up his back until his steel-spiked boots cut deep 
into his shoulders. 

“You’ve called it right, doctor!” Bart ex¬ 
claimed presently. ‘ 1 That disk in the old boy’s 
belly ain’t on the wall of this cave like the rest 
of the figure, but on a level of rock about two 
feet further back in. And down between the 
sunk-in layer and the wall of the cave is the be- 

249 






THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


ginning of a sort of smooth, funnel-like shoot 
slanting into the mountain. A big draft is 
flowing through so there must he an outlet to 
the air at the other end and I-” 

Alan could hear his companion utter an oath 
of astonishment and, a moment later, he had 
jumped to the slab beside him. 

“What do you think of this?” he exclaimed 
excitedly. “I found it lying just below the 
opening of the shoot.” 

“ It’s her handkerchief. ’ ’ Alan bent intently 
over the crumpled, wet wad. “She must have 
been unconscious when he carried her down or 
she would have kept on calling. ’ ’ 

“That’s why he struck her,” the foreman re¬ 
plied thoughtfully. “He had to do it. Other¬ 
wise she would have given away his hiding 
place.” 

“But how could he have ever raised her up 
there?” Alan looked at the wall dubiously. 
“That hole is at least ten feet above the slab 
we are standing on now and Miss Paloma is no 
light weight. ’’ 

“See them projections?” Bart pointed to 
some outcroppings of the stone hidden in the 

250 






SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


design. “He could grab them and pull himself 
up. Once he got his leg over the edge of the 
funnel, he could easily hoist her after him with 
the rope with which he had her bound. All 
he’d have to do would be to tie the end around 
his own waist before he shinnied up himself.” 

“Could you see where the shoot went to?” 

“No. It drops pretty sharp for a couple of 
feet; then slopes down into the rock at an eas¬ 
ier angle. It is too dark to see anything clear 
and the surface is so slippery that I didn’t dare 
start down for fear I couldn’t get back.” 

Alan stood with his hands clasped behind his 
back, gazing dejectedly at the grotesque, de¬ 
formed painting on the wall. 

“Tell you what you do,” he said, his face 
brightening. “Fetch your lasso, hitch it round 
my waist and lower me down. I’ve got Miss 
Paloma’s pocket flash and I’ll explore.” 

“Have your gun ready!” his companion cau¬ 
tioned. “Like as not Romero’s hiding some¬ 
where inside and that club he’s got ain’t no 
mean weapon. ’ ’ 

With the lariat firmly fastened under his arm- 
pits Alan dug his toes into the projections on 

251 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


the design and pulled himself up to the mouth 
of the funnel. Straddling the rim, he gripped 
his revolver firmly and let his feet slip down 
the slide until his weight drew the lasso taut. 
Slowly Bart played out the rope until about 
forty feet had disappeared over the ridge of 
the hole above him. Then he could feel it go 
slack and, although it still jerked now and then, 
he knew that the doctor had found a resting 
place. The foreman was becoming uneasy 
when there came a series of tugs and a muffled 
voice seemed to issue from the rock beneath his 
feet. Pulling steadily, a curly head finally ap¬ 
peared in the opening above. 

“We’ve got it straight now,” Alan began, as 
he clambered down beside his companion. 
“That shoot pitches at a fairly steep angle for 
twenty-five feet; then it curves out flat like a 
swimming slide and ends in a little circular 
chamber about ten feet across; and, although 
the surface is as slippery as ice, you can take 
it at full speed because the bottom of the cham¬ 
ber is covered with white sand so it wouldn’t 
hurt to be shot out on it. ’ ’ 

252 




SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


“Did yon see any traces of Eomero and Miss 
Paloma?” 

“Yes! There were fresh streaks where their 
bodies had landed; also Romero’s footprints, 
showing that Miss Paloma was probably sense¬ 
less and he was carrying her.” 

“Was there any sign of where they had gone? 
Is there any passage ont through the cliff?” 

“Not through the cliff. But a circular shaft 
about ten feet in diameter rises out of the cham¬ 
ber straight up into the mountain. There are 
steps cut around it and, while I am not sure, I 
think it reaches clear to those ruins you spoke 
about at the top of the dome above us. For 
way, way up I thought I could see a pin point 
of light.’ 9 

“But how do you suppose those old guys ever 
sunk such a hole?” Bart burst out in wonder. 
“Why, it’s a thousand feet from the top down 
here.” 

“I don’t think the shaft was built by men,” 
Alan explained, “although those old Mexicans 
were splendid workers in stone.” 

( ‘ Then how was it built ? ’ ’ 

“You remember the stream leaping from the 

253 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


cliff wall just to the right of the entrance. I 
have an idea this water once flowed down that 
shaft and poured out through the mouths of the 
cave where we are now. ’’ 

“But what made it change and pitch out 
higher up?” 

“This is earthquake country and one of the 
sliding faults that are occurring every year or 
so probably shoved up this end wall here and 
blocked the outlet. Then the water had to find 
another way and chose the higher opening, eat¬ 
ing a new channel and leaving its former course 
dry. All the old natives had to do was to bore 
through this end wall to reach the dried-up shaft 
and an easy way to the top of the mountain.” 

“But why did them fellers conceal the open¬ 
ing to the shoot the way they have! Why, it’s 
so blamed hidden in the design on the old gink’s 
belly that we’d never have hit on it except by 
luck. ’ ’ 

“Perhaps they didn’t want the people to 
know about the shaft. Then the medicine men 
or priests or whatever they called them could 
climb down from the temple on the top of the 
mountain and, from the chamber below us, call 

254 





SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


up the funnel all sorts of truck and make the 
people in this cave believe the figure here was 
doing the talking. Still, Bart, your guess is as 
good as mine. What we have got to do now is 
to act.” 

‘ ‘ When you were down there did you hear any 
sound of them going up the shaft?” 

“No! But that doesn’t mean anything. 
We’ve been fooling around for over an hour 
and they have had ample time to reach the top 
of the mountain.” 

“And the worst of it is,” Bart added gloom¬ 
ily, “there’s that La Cumbre trail leading from 
the summit of the dome down the south side of 
the mountain until it joins the main trail about 
four miles beyond where we left it to come on 
up here. The Rancho del Sur begins a quarter 
of a mile south of this junction and there’s a 
herder’s shack there where the three men hang 
out who have charge of the herd of the moun¬ 
tain section. They call this place the Solano 
hut and it’s all off for us if Romero joins up 
with them Mexicans; for they are armed and 
as bad ones as he has in his crowd and once he 
got Miss Paloma to El Solano we would have 

255 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


to go back for our boys and make a fight for 
her. And, believe me, we’d have some job on 
our hands for the Granadians ain’t much on 
the scrapping game.” 

“But have we time to make the junction of 
the trails before he does?” Alan inquired anx¬ 
iously. 

“It’s four miles from the ruins on the top to 
the fork of the La Cumbre and the main trail. 
It’s good going all the way except for a short 
stretch where the path runs over oil shale and 
is sticky from the tar oozing out of the rock. 
Bomero has probably just about reached the 
summit now for, carrying Miss Paloma, it 
would take him about an hour to climb a thou¬ 
sand feet. If he were alone, there would be 
no question that he could get to the fork first. 
For we’d have to cover a good five miles and 
he could make quicker time running down the 
trail on foot than we could on horseback. But 
he has Miss Paloma on his hands and we ought 
to beat him easily, especially as he ’ll have a lot 
of trouble getting her across the oil field. 
Come on, though! We’ve lost too much time 
already. ’ ’ 


256 




SHOT THROUGH THE WALL 


But Alan hesitated. “Suppose he hasn’t 
climbed to the top at all,” he objected. “Sup¬ 
pose he was in that room down there all the 
time listening to what we said and hoping that 
we wouldn’t find his hiding place. And when 
I finally did go down in, just climbing up the 
shaft a bit and waiting, believing that, just as 
we are doing, we would figure it out that he was 
trying to get down by the La Cumbre trail and 
would ride around to head him off. Then all 
he would have to do would be to come up the 
shoot and take to the bush for home.” 

The foreman nodded thoughtfully. “We 
sure don’t want to run no risks of his double 
crossing us like that,” he admitted. 

“Tell you what we’d better do,” Alan pro¬ 
posed. “You start around and meet him as he 
comes down the trail with Miss Paloma. I’ll 
go up the shaft and close in on him from above. 
Either of us can handle him alone for we are 
armed and he is not.” 

“That’s a good idea,” Bart agreed. “Let’s 
go to it!” 

Together they issued through the central 
opening and walked over near the waterfall 

257 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


where the three horses were quietly browsing 
on the rich, wet grass. 

“So long, doctor,” Bart called out as a mo¬ 
ment later he swung on Capitan. 

“See you later, Bart, and good luck!” 




CHAPTER XXVI 


THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


A S the bronzed, raw-boned figure, leaning 
far back in the saddle, slipped over the 
rim of the shelf, Alan crossed to where 
Pinto and Chubby were pawing the rock, impa¬ 
tient at being abandoned by their fellow. Tak¬ 
ing from Pinto’s saddle bag a box of crackers, 
the remains of some herder’s lunch, he felt that 
his flash and revolver were secure in his pock¬ 
ets and passed in once more between the mas¬ 
sive pillars. Clambering up to the disk on the 
figure’s paunch, he hesitated for a second, gaz¬ 
ing down the polished shoot. Then, putting 
his hands before him as though diving, he threw 
himself flat and let go. A swift rush through 
the dark and he was shot like a bundle on to 
the soft floor. Scrambling to his feet, spitting 
the sand from his lips, he turned to the foot 
of the spiral stairway that wound up through 
the belly of the mountain. 

259 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


For some time he climbed rapidly, hugging 
the curving wall to keep from slipping off the 
glossy steps into the central well that seemed 
to draw him with a steady pull. His flash 
played fitfully on the smooth sides from which 
threads of water were oozing. In the damp 
heavy air his breath showed in rapid white 
puffs as from a spent horse on a foggy morning. 

Once he brought up sharply and whipped out 
his gun, then kept on as the shadow above 
melted under the rays of the flash. His lungs 
felt raw, as if some one were scraping them with 
a rake, and there came to his memory that day 
when the elevators in the Singer Building had 
broken down and he had climbed to his law¬ 
yer’s office in the tower. Drops of sweat kept 
trickling into his eyes and he threw his head 
back with irritation as, with the back of his hand, 
he wiped away their salty flow. 

Constantly he marveled at the man ahead. 
Granted that he knew the way, the effort of 
carrying such a burden up this stairway seemed 
superhuman. But why had he carried her off? 
The reason was obvious and Alan shuddered 
as he realized that only Paloma stood between 

260 




THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


the Spaniard and his possession of the entire 
island. With the Mexicans at his back right 
would fall to the strong on Corona del Mar. 
Once safe at the Rancho del Sur, the girl’s life 
wonld depend on- 

For a hundred yards Alan ran upwards two 
steps at a time. Then, his mouth wide open, 
his lungs working like bellows, he slowed his 
gait and, his face drawn, he plugged doggedly 
on. The pin point of light overhead was grow¬ 
ing ever larger. At the end of a half hour it 
had become a constantly expanding saucer of 
deep blue in the midst of which shone a star. 
He wondered at this until he remembered that 
down in mines the stars are visible. He blessed 
that disk of blue, for his flash was growing 
dimmer and he was forced to make his way by 
the wan light filtering down the black-walled 
flue. Only a little more and he would come out 
into the azure above. Throwing his last ounce 
into a final spurt he ran up the remaining steps. 
Suddenly he threw himself flat on his face to 
keep from pitching headfirst into the gloom of 
the well. The stairway had come to a sudden 

261 






TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


end on a little platform projecting like a div¬ 
ing shelf over the shaft beneath. 

Gingerly Alan rose to his feet. By the light 
eating away the shadows down the sides of the 
shaft he could see that, from the shelf on which 
he was standing to the rim above, no steps or 
projections broke the smoothness of the pol¬ 
ished sides, which curved like the dome of a 
lime kiln to its moss-lined mouth above. To 
climb it was out of the question. He trembled 
slightly as he realized that he had reached an 
impasse . 

Gradually his breath and strength returned, 
his nerves became quieter and he turned to ex¬ 
amine his narrow perch. That Romero and 
Paloma had come to this platform there was no 
reasonable ground for doubt; that they had 
gone on was certain; then, there must be a way. 
Lighting a match, he carefully examined the 
walls. A shout of relief echoed strangely in 
the hollow tube and caused some bats hanging 
above his head to flutter. Cut in the solid rock 
at his elbow was the frame of a great square 
door, a handleless door, a massive, crude exam¬ 
ple of the stone cutter’s art. At his feet, close 

262 




THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


to the wall, a twisted lever of some yellowish 
metal projected a foot from the floor. Stoop¬ 
ing, grasping it firmly, Alan pulled. The 
grinding of stone upon stone and the great 
block of granite slowly pivoted on its axis. 
While through the widening crack, flowing in a 
cooling, steady stream, came the freshening, 
briny tang of a salt-soaked ocean breeze. Push¬ 
ing through the opening fissure, bounding along 
a short passage and up a narrow flight of steps, 
he burst out on to the sun-flooded summit of 
Sun Mountain. 

For a time Alan groped blindly, his sight 
drowned by the intense glare. As the tears 
cleared away, he crouched, dizzy from the pull 
of the great depths around him. Far below, 
a plain lay like a carpet of green velvet on the 
smooth, blue floor of the channel. Out of its 
even, rolling sweep the spurs of the range 
reached up to buttress the great granite pedes¬ 
tal that formed the summit of the mountain. 
Skirting its base, the main trail to the south 
wound brown amidst the black green of the 
pines. To the north the jagged spine of the 
ridge coiled like some prehistoric serpent until 

263 



TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


it stuck its sharp, gray snout into the frothy 
surf of the ocean. Around the Northern Point 
splashes of thistle-down marked the hacienda 
and its buildings. Up over the sea wall floated 
the faint boom of the breakers, bowling in from 
the islands on the other side of the globe. As 
far as the eye could reach, out beyond the edge 
of the curve of the world, a field of lapis-lazuli 
streaked with purple and green shimmered in 
the heat of the summer’s noon. 

Alone to the south the flat top of the pedestal 
did not drop off in a sheer precipice, but, tilting 
sharply, pitched down to the main ridge that 
twisted away to where, beyond the white specks 
of the Rancho del Sur, its tail lashed into laugh¬ 
ing foam the long swells from the Pacific. The 
air was still, but for the breeze that softly 
seethes around great heights. The world was 
still, but for the mysterious murmurs of space, 
the half-heard whirling of distant suns, the 
faint echoes of infinity. 

As Alan looked around him he saw that he 
was standing in the midst of the ruins of an 
old temple that, in bygone days, had occupied 
the northern end of the platform at the summit. 

264 




TEE CLIMB TO TEE SUN 


In the rough form of a rectangle were scattered 
huge blocks of stone, all worn and scarred by 
time, some covered with strange carvings 
and weird hieroglyphics. Before the temple 
stretched an open space that occupied the re¬ 
mainder of the platform and was inclosed on 
all sides by a parapet wall. In its center stood 
a curiously carved altar of grayish, soapy mar¬ 
ble, sunk in the top of which was a weather- 
greened copper bowl for the sacred fire. 
Through the parapet on the south an opening 
led down over a flight of steps cut in the steeply 
curving granite of the dome. At their foot 
began the La Cumbre trail, zigzagging like a 
flash of lightning on to the plains below. 

Peering behind the great stone slabs, Alan 
cautiously picked his way along the platform. 
It was empty. Evidently Romero and Paloma 
had kept on down the trail. Clattering over 
the chipped stone around the altar, he brought 
up with a jerk. From somewhere the sound of 
a low moan was carried faintly to his ears. He 
waited, tense, listening. It came again, appar¬ 
ently from up over the sea face. Rushing to 
the flat wall, he leaned far out. The cliff at 

265 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


this point dropped sheer. Around its base the 
restless waters swirled and surged, patterned 
With designs of white filigree on a deep green 
ground. Just over the parapet at his feet the 
edge of the cliff had been cut back into a sort 
of niche, like those recesses in the walls of 
Gothic cathedrals destined to receive the statues 
of saints. Chiseled out of the back of this niche 
was a seat of carved stone. The whole made 
by some nature-loving priest in charge of the 
fire, who, sheltered from the north wind, could 
let his thoughts wander out over the vast dis¬ 
tances of the ocean. 

As Alan peered down, his pulses jumped and 
he pressed hard on the smooth marble to keep 
from pitching over. Thrown back in the seat 
just below, hooped like a mummy with a thick 
cow rope, lay Paloma. A line of red streaked 
her forehead, from which a small filet of blood 
had trickled down and matted her eyebrow. 
She lay still, her feet propped firmly against 
the narrow ledge to keep from slipping forward. 
Now and again she threw her head from side 
to side and moaned like a wounded animal. 

Gripping the edge of the parapet, Alan turned 

266 




THE CLIMB TO TEE SUN 


and let himself down nntil his feet rested on 
the floor of the niche. As a shadow came be¬ 
fore her, the girl opened her eyes, trying to see 
through the searing rays of the beating sun. 
Then, with a little cry, she closed her lids and 
lay still. 

“Thank God, you’ve come,” she whispered 
hoarsely. 

Bending forward, Alan lifted her in his arms. 
Then, standing on the seat, he gradually raised 
her above his head and carefully slid her on to 
the broad top of the parapet. He scrambled 
up and lowered her into the shade of its marble 
side. Kneeling, his fingers tugged at the knots 
that left scarlet welts across the ivory of her 
skin. She lay relaxed, her eyes closed, her lips 
half open. For a flash it occurred to him that 
she had fainted and he shook her gently. The 
lids fluttered and she smiled weakly up into 
his face. 

‘‘Mary Mother /’ she said low. 4 ‘It’s so 
good to have the pain of those ropes gone and 
that sun out of my eyes.” 

‘ 4 But your head V 7 he asked, worried, wiping 
away the matted blood. 

267 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


‘‘It is nothing.” 

“But did he knock you senseless?” 

“I think it must be so, but it was the sun that 
was terrible. And I not able to move for fear 
of slipping over the edge .’ 9 

Tenderly Alan bent over her and put his arm 
beneath her shoulders. 

“You poor little girl,” he murmured. 

As he started to raise her against the para¬ 
pet, she drew in her breath quickly and her face 
winced. 

“What is it?” he inquired anxiously. 

“I know not,” she set her teeth, “but when I 
move, it seems as if I were paralyzed, yet as if 
a knife was cutting into my legs.” 

“That is natural,” Alan reassured her. 
“The rope has pressed on the veins and stopped 
the flow of blood. Let me rub you and the cir¬ 
culation will come back . 9 9 

For a time he worked steadily, his firm, 
strong fingers kneading the swollen ankles. 
Neither spoke. When he finally raised his 
head, she was looking down at him, a plaintive, 
far-away look in her eyes. 

268 




THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


“I knew you’d come,” she said softly. 
“Only, I was afraid-” 

She passed her hand wearily across her fore¬ 
head. Alan moved up and sat beside her. 

“Where is he?” he asked. 

“He started down the trail two hours ago.” 

“Why did he leave you here?” 

For a moment Paloma looked out over the 
sea wall. 

“He knew everything depended on his being 
the first to reach the Solano Hut where his herd¬ 
ers live. And he left me because I slowed his 
speed.” 

“How long will it take him to reach the fork 
of the La Cumbre and the main trail?” 

“About an hour and a half, I should think. 
A man on foot can run down faster than one on 
horseback and the way is good except across 
the oil field.” 

“You say he started about two hours ago?” 

Paloma nodded. 

“Then,” Alan concluded, “he must have 
passed the fork and reached the herder’s hut 
by now. ’ ’ 


269 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


“Assuredly ,’ 9 the girl answered. “That is, 
if Bart has not headed him off.” 

“Bart has lost his race.” Alan shook his 
head gravely. “He only started two hours ago 
and it would take him that long to reach the 
fork. ’ ’ 

“That is bad, not so?” Paloma declared. 
“For now my cousin not only can gather in his 
Mexicans, hut he can bring back those men at 
the Solano Hut and block us from getting home 
down the trail . 9 9 

“We still have the shaft,” Alan reminded 
her. “And the horses are outside the cave.” 

“I had forgotten.” Paloma brightened. 
“But don’t you think they will ambush Bart 
when he reaches the fork?” 

“ No! ” Alan replied. ‘ i He ought to get there 
about the time that Romero reaches the Solano 
Hut and I think he will probably start right on 
up here.” 

“Unless he returns to the hacienda for our 
Granadians,” Paloma suggested. 

“He will not do that,” Alan explained, “for 
he will suppose that your cousin is bringing 

270 




THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


you down the trail and he will come on up to 
try to intercept him .’ 9 

“Then if Eomero and his men start up the 
trail later, they will have him bottled in . 9 9 

“Don’t worry about Bart,” Alan reassured 
her. “He has the shaft just as we have. The 
important thing is that we have you out of his 
hands. ’ ’ 

“I suppose I should be thankful,” the girl 
agreed thoughtfully. “For I do stand in the 
way of all he wishes in this world, do I not ? 9 9 

“What did he say to you on the way up?” 
Alan inquired. 

“Nothing. He only spoke once and that was 
after he had lowered me into the niche and had 
started to walk away. As I heard his steps 
grow fainter, I became frightened for a second 
and called. In a moment he was bending over 
the parapet.” 

“ i You ’re not going to leave me tied this 
way?’ I said. 

“ ‘I can’t take you unless you hurry,’ he an¬ 
swered. * Will you be sensible and come along ? ’ 

“I did not reply, but my eyes must have told 
him something for he nodded his head slowly 

271 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


and leaned over until his face was close to 
mine. 

“ ‘I want you, Paloma,’ he said, ‘and, by God, 
Pm going to have you. Only, you’ve got to 
change your temper a bit before you will make 
me a good girl.’ Then he pushed himself back 
over the parapet and I could hear his footsteps 
die away down the trail.” 

For a time Paloma lay back against the stone, 
her eyes closed, her breath coming quickly. At 
last she gave a little shiver and half raising 
herself on one hand, held out the other to her 
companion. 

“Help me up!” she said, resolutely. “I feel 
better now and we must start down. ’ ’ 

Her arm around his shoulder, she limped 
across the open space to the head of the stair¬ 
way. Slowly they made their way down the 
rough steps and turned into the short passage 
leading to the mouth of the shaft. As Alan’s 
glance shot ahead, he stopped dead. 

‘ ‘ Good Lord! ” he burst out. ‘ ‘ The door has 
swung shut. ’ ’ 

Blocking the passage, a smooth, massive wall 
of granite stared them in the face. 

272 




THE CLIMB TO THE SUN 


“What a fool I was!” lie muttered. “I ought 
to have guessed it would swing back, but 
I was so anxious about getting to you that I 
didn’t think of anything.” 

“Is there no way of opening it from this 
side?” Paloma asked, her voice trembling 
slightly. 

“There was once.” Alan pointed to a 
groove in the floor near the wall. “But the 
chain has been removed.” 

“Then that means—” the color left the girl’s 
face. 

“It means,” his voice, too, was strained, “it 
means that the way down the shaft is blocked. ’ ’ 




CHAPTER XXVII 
THE RACE FOR THE TAR FIELD 


“T“"JUT my cousin and his men will come 
j up the trail,’’ she murmured, half to 
herself. 

Alan shook his head. “I’m afraid they have 
us trapped,” he admitted gravely. 

“But, my Alan,” her voice broke, “suppose 
they find you and-” 

Gently he bent over her and touched her fore¬ 
head with his lips. 

“Keep your nerve, dear!” he said firmly. 
“We are going to win out somehow. Nothing 
can separate us now.” 

Slowly Alan and Paloma climbed the stair¬ 
way and came out once more on the sun-flooded 
platform. It was past noon. Overhead bunches 
of cotton were lazily sailing, trailing fleeting 
patches of shadow along the rugged peaks. 
Under their covering the ridge seemed black 
and cold and gloomy. But when the cloud had 

274 



THE RACE FOR THE TAR FIELD 


floated by, the craggy summits shone warm in 
the sunshine and the somber valleys were 
brightened by blue patches of wild lilacs. 

At the south end of the summit where the 
trail cut through the parapet, Paloma stopped 
and pointed. Down where the canon emptied 
on the plain, annihilated by the great distance, 
a white dot showed against the olive green. 
Above, a scroll of tenuous blue twisted straight 
into the sky. 

“It's the herder’s hut,” she said. “If we 
only knew if Bart-” 

The crack of a shot bounded back and forth 
up the canon walls and they bent forward, 
straining to pierce the screen of oaks and syca¬ 
mores hiding the valley floor. Three more 
shots, deeper, fuller, resounded in quick suc¬ 
cession. 

“Things have started down there,” Alan 
muttered. 

She nodded. “That short bark was Bart’s 
revolver. The volley was from rifles.” 

“Those shots came from at least halfway 
up the canon,” Alan went on. “It has turned 
out just as we thought. Bart reached the fork 

275 





TEE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


after Eomero and, not knowing that he had 
passed him, started up the trail. Then Ro¬ 
mero returned with his men and, having fresh 
horses, overtook him. Now, Bart is trying to 
hold them back long enough to reach us.” 

i ‘ Then we had better start ,’ 1 she urged. 
“For, with only six cartridges in your gun, our 
only hope of standing them off lies in join¬ 
ing Bart.” 

“Shouldn’t we wait up here?” Alan objected. 
“This would be a splendid place to hold.” 

“There is one more suited below,” the girl 

explained, starting to pick her way down the 

steep steps cut in the dome. “About a half 

mile from here the vallev runs level for a little 

•/ 

and then drops straight over to the tar field I 
spoke of. It takes any one a long time to cross 
this field, because the feet slip. And, unless 
we cover him from above so Romero cannot 
shoot at him, Bart will never be able to traverse 
it and live.’ 9 

They had reached the foot of the steps and 
were slipping down a narrow path sunk in a 
crack of the great granite monolith. Boulders 
strewed the way and Alan kept hold of the arm 

276 




THE RACE FOR THE TAR FIELD 


of Paloma, who still limped slightly. Gradually 
the rift in the dome widened, clumps of sage 
and greasewood gripped their roots into crev¬ 
ices in the rock and a snowflower showed its 
brilliant scarlet head. As the sound of firing 
was again blown to their ears, Paloma dropped 
her companion’s arm and hurried on ahead. 

“Come!” she called back, “we must hurry. 
For, Alan, we just must reach the ledge before 
Bart comes to the tar field.” 

The path was sloping more gradually now, 
skirting a swift stream that tumbled down the 
ever widening valley. For a second, beside a 
pool, the man and the girl threw themselves flat 
and plunged their cracked lips into the cool, 
green waters. Then, with a gasp of relief, they 
pushed on. At the end of a quarter of an hour 
the trail bore left, then elbowed sharply be¬ 
tween two boulders and ran out on to a peace¬ 
ful valley snuggled between the cliffs of the 
range. 

Its even floor was covered with a thick rug 
of ferns and grass, splashed with daubs of 
orange poppies. Along the eastern wall the 
stream flowed, its surface shiny like black ice. 

277 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


No trees broke the sheer expanse of green, ex¬ 
cept at the lower end where two giant pines 
rose like sentinels. The inclosing walls were 
straight, inaccessible, unbroken. Across their 
rims, far above, the canvas of the sky stretched 
smooth and blue. Just beyond the pines the 
grass ended in a cliff that dropped sheer for a 
hundred feet to a similar level valley beneath. 
Over this cliff the stream tumbled, beating it¬ 
self into frothy foam that rose in a mist and 
floated off against the smooth precipice. 

Following its course Alan and Paloma pushed 
on beyond the pines and peered over the edge. 
Below them was a little level valley, inclosed, 
like the ledge above, by the towering cliffs of 
the ridge. At its southern end it merged into 
a tree-filled canon that meandered down on the 
plains. But about two hundred yards from 
where they were standing the oaks and syca¬ 
mores ended in a clean-cut line. And from this 
point to the base of the precipice at their feet 
the valley was covered with a layer of oil, thick 
and sticky as tar, that was oozing from the 
straight shale walls on either side. Slowly the 
gummy waves lapped over one another until, 

278 


THE RACE FOR THE TAR FIELD 


beneath the eastern cliff, they slipped into the 
stream. In its clear, cold waters the oil hard¬ 
ened into great disks of inky putty and either 
sank to the coal black bed or were carried by 
the swift current down to the sea. Dotting the 
tarry field, pools of dirty brown were scattered 
thick where the lighter oil had risen to the sur¬ 
face of the heavier base. To their nostrils rose 
the pungent, irritating smell of gasoline. 

For a time they stood looking down. Then 
Paloma touched Alan’s elbow and pointed. 

4 ‘See! There are his tracks!” she ex¬ 
claimed. 

At a spot just below the western cliff the flow 
had stopped, and, over an area of several yards, 
the oil had hardened into the consistency of 
molder’s clay. Sunk deep in its plastic surface 
were the marks of heavy boots. 

“Why didn’t he walk down the bed of the 
stream?” Alan asked. “Even if it is wet, it 
looks like much easier going than across that 
oil.” 

“You would think so, not so?” the girl ex¬ 
plained, “but it is much better where he went. 
There is a gummy layer all along the bottom of 

279 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


the river and yon sink in right up to your knees. 
A few years ago, we had a lot of trouble with 
the cattle straying up here and getting stuck 
until father had the mouth of the canon fenced 
off.” 

Alan ran his hand through his hair and stood 
gazing thoughtfully downward. “Even if we 
cover him,” he said gravely, “it is going to be 
a tough pull for Bart to get across. It will take 
him a minute at least to make it and he will be 
a splendid target.” 

As the shots kept rattling ever louder up the 
walls of the canon, Paloma seized her compan¬ 
ion’s arm. 

‘ ‘ See that clearing about a quarter of a mile 
down there?” she said, excitedly. “By the 
sounds I should say they are nearly there. It’s 
the only other open space on the trail and Bart 
will have to make a dash for it just the same 
as he will here. Only, he has not the oil to stop 
him . 9 9 

As she spoke there burst out of the pines bor¬ 
dering the clearing a horse, its belly close to 
the ground. Crouching forward on its out¬ 
stretched neck clung a long, spare form. His 

280 




THE RACE FOR THE TAR FIELD 


hat was gone. His hair, blown back over his 
forehead, was mixed with the mane of his 
mount of which he seemed a part. Once, when 
the exhausted beast stumbled, the man appeared 
to lift him up and carry him on by sheer force 
of his will. He was two thirds across the open 
space when a second rider crashed out of the 
pines, jerked his horse on his haunches, and 
jumped to the ground. Coolly he raised his 
rifle and covered the swaying foreman. Paloma 
bent forward, the muscles of her face twitching 
as on strings. 

‘ ‘ It’s Romero!” she gasped. 4 ‘Holy Mary, 
he will kill him.’ ’ 

From his position along the horse’s neck, 
Bart kept glancing back over his shoulder. As 
his pursuer balanced his rifle, he swerved 
sharply and with the swiftness of a lizard, 
slipped over the mustang ’s side. A puff of cot¬ 
ton from the dull barrel and Capitan bounded 
sidewise, staggered a few steps, then pitched 
forward in a heap. 

“He’s hit him!” Paloma groaned, gnawing 
her knuckles. 

“No! It’s his horse! ’’ Alan said, as the fore- 

281 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


man scrambled to his feet and, stooping double, 
dashed in a zigzag for the shelter of the forest. 
Again the kneeling figure methodically leveled 
his rifle and followed the dodging man. It 
seemed an age before there came a second puff 
of smoke, Romero’s shoulder jerked back 
quickly, and a resounding crack awoke the 
echoes of the walls. For a moment the girl 
held her breath, then a cry broke from her 
throat. 

i i He’s made it ! 9 9 she sobbed. ‘ 4 Mary Mother, 
he’s made it! ’ 9 




CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE FIGHT IN THE CANON 


A S the tall, gaunt figure was swallowed up 
in the pines, Romero had vaulted in the 
saddle and his heels beat a double tattoo 
against his horse’s flanks. But, before the ani¬ 
mal could bound forward, three horsemen shot 
past him out of the forest and dashed on in full 
cry across the clearing. They were big, power¬ 
ful men and their red shirts bulged from their 
leather coats like the entrails of a gored bull. 
Begrimed sheep-fleece leggings covered their 
legs. Under the broad brims of their greasy, 
high-crowned hats, their matted hair and 
bristly, stubby beards showed like bands of soot 
across the chocolate of their skin. Their elbows 
swung rhythmically with the motion of their 
mounts. One hand gripped the reins with 
which they kept up a continuous lashing of 
their horses’ heads. Two held rifles, the butts 
swinging free. The third was unarmed, having 

283 



THE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


evidently turned over his weapon to his leader. 
In its stead he carried a coil of cow rope. 

As the forest hid the galloping men, Paloma 
looked at Alan and shuddered. For a moment 
his teeth bit into his lower lip. Then his jaw 
set in a firm, hard line. 

“We’re in for it!” he said, opening the 
breech of his revolver and snapping the trigger. 

In the woods below a sharp crack rang out; 
then another; then a scattering volley. One of 
the bullets chugged against the cliff wall at their 
feet, then fell with a splash into the bog of oil 
below. 

“Do you think he’s making a stand?’’ Paloma 
questioned, anxiously. 

“He’s got to,” Alan answered. “He’s on 
foot now and can run up these rough trails as 
fast as a horse. Every time he makes them 
get off and fire, he gains just the time it takes 
for them to mount again.” 

Another fusillade of shots, and Bart’s re¬ 
volver spoke in quick succession like the ex¬ 
plosions of a motor boat. Then the sound of 
running, the more distant echo of horses ’ hoofs, 
and the foreman burst through an opening in 

284 




THE FIGHT IN THE CANON 


the trees and plunged ahead across the oil field. 

Several seconds later a horseman shot over 
the brow of the trail and reined up on the edge 
of the oil. Braced against the high-backed sad¬ 
dle he stood sharply outlined on the deep green 
of the pines. Deliberately Alan rested his Colt 
in a groove on a boulder overhanging the rim 
and laid the sight on the frosting eye of the 
Mexican. Before he could pull the trigger, 
Paloma gripped his arm. 

‘‘Don’t shoot!” she warned. ‘‘He isn’t 
armed. He has given his gun to Romero.” 

As she spoke, a second rider pulled up beside 
his comrade, who sidled along towards the cliff 
to give him room. Slipping to the ground, the 
newcomer leveled his rifle at the foreman wal¬ 
lowing in the gluey oil fifteen yards away. 

Alan’s muscles tightened, his shoulder 
jerked back and, as the shot rang out, the Mex¬ 
ican spun round like a top and sank to the 
ground in a heap, while his horse, its bridle 
dragging, moved off into the forest placidly 
cropping the grass. 

“You hit him!” Paloma exclaimed, her nos- 

285 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


trils dilated, her lips drawn back in a half-ex- 
nltant smile. 

“I guess so.” Alan passed his hand across 
his eyes to shut out the sight of the ruby stream 
pumping in jets out of the hole in the ginger¬ 
bread cheek. As he raised his head, Romero 
and the third herder were framed in the open¬ 
ing of the trail, their gaze traveling from the 
man on the ground to the boulder on the ledge 
above. Suddenly Paloma gave a startled cry. 

“Look!” she burst out, her voice quivering. 
1 ‘ Over by the cliff ! 9 9 

Below the western wall on a flat layer of shale 
that projected well into the oil, the unarmed 
Mexican was standing in his stirrups. Above 
his head he was swinging a sweeping coil of 
rope, unnoticed by the foreman who, advanc¬ 
ing sidewise, his head turned back, was 
watching Romero and his companion. Paloma 
strained forward over the edge of the cliff. 

* i Bart! Bart ! 9 9 she cried frantically. ‘ ‘Look 
out! Over by the cliff ! 9 9 

As she called, the loop swished through the 
air and sank gracefully over the shoulders of 
the floundering man. For a flash his arms beat 

286 




THE FIGHT IN THE CANON 


the air like a swimmer caught in kelp. Then, 
as the herder wheeled and dug his spurs in 
deep, the rope drew taut, Bart’s feet flew out 
and like a log of wood on well-soaped skids, he 
bumped over the slippery ooze. 

Half rising, Alan fired. A laughing taunt in 
Spanish showed that the bullet had missed its 
mark. A rifle cracked and a shot thugged like 
putty against the great pine at their back. 

“Holy Virgin, that was close!” Paloma ex¬ 
claimed, dragging her companion into the shel¬ 
ter of the boulder. 

“You stay down!” Alan advised. “Let me 
be the one to see what is going on.” 

Cautiously he peered through the groove, 
then ducked. 

“They’ve got him,” he muttered. “Romero 
jumped on him as the other fellow pulled him 
along.” 

Presently a growl of anger burst from his 
lips. 

“What has happened?” Paloma questioned, 
anxiously. 

“Bart tried to put up a fight when they took 
his gun away,” he answered grimly, “and Ro- 

287 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


mero clubbed bim with the butt of his rifle. 
They are roping him to a tree now and his head 
is hanging limp. He is knocked out all right.’’ 

‘ 1 They ’re coming!’ ’ he added after a moment. 
41 Romero is over below the west cliff and the 
other two are following up beside the stream.” 

Once more Alan rested his revolver on the 
edge of the boulder and fired. An answering 
volley sent a flight of splinters stinging their 
faces. 

“Missed him!” he exclaimed as he ducked to 
shelter. 

“Do you not think,” the girl remonstrated, 
“that it would be better to wait until they are 
nearer? You have only three shots left.” 

“I can’t wait,” Alan explained. “If they 
get close under the cliff or on the trail up here 
it’s impossible to see them. It’s now or never. ’ ’ 

Once more Alan raised his head above the 
rock parapet, his forearm jerked back, and the 
man nearest the stream threw up his arms and 
toppled heavily on his back. He lay quite still, 
his knees drawn up against his chin, while the 
bullets again spattered splinters over the 
boulder. 


288 




THE FIGHT IN THE CANON 


“You hit him!” Paloma exclaimed eagerly, 
peering around the corner of the boulder. 

“It took two shots,” Alan shook his head 
gravely. “I have only one left.” 

“Use it on Komero!” the girl said in a low 
voice, her teeth clenched. “He is the impor¬ 
tant one.” 

The Spaniard had left the western wall and 
was sidling in towards the foot of the trail at 
the base of the cliff. He was bent forward, the 
muzzle of his rifle sweeping the boulder on the 
rim above. His moist lips were half open. 
Occasionally his eyes winked quickly as if he 
were afraid to keep the lids long closed. Once 
he called something in Spanish to his compan¬ 
ion further over towards the stream. 

Deliberately the doctor raised his head and 
brought the tiny bead where the man’s teeth 
showed white under the black mustache. Simul¬ 
taneously two shots rang out and Alan, with a 
sharp cry, pitched heavily forward against the 
rock. For a second, he lay crumpled up; then, 
struggling to his knees he looked around, dazed. 

“Oh, my Alan are you badly hurt?” Paloma 

289 



THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


asked anxiously, pointing to the blood trickling 
over his ear. 

Slowly he put his hand to his head, felt it 
for a moment, and stared at the carmine stain 
on his finger tips. 

“It's nothing!” he reassured her, his senses 
clear. 44 His bullet just grazed the skin. Let’s 
see what I did!’ 9 

Cautiously he stuck his head above the rock, 
then dropped beside his companion. 

i i I missed him , 9 9 he groaned. 6 1 His shot must 
have turned my aim.” 

“Are they coming?” Paloma asked. 

“No! Romero is standing up and isn’t even 
looking our way. I think he has guessed that 
we have used up the six shots in the revolver. ’ ’ 

They sat looking at each other, their 
thoughts chasing through their brains in a mad 
whirl. The girl’s eyes were wide open, her 
face drawn, her fingers convulsively crushing 
in a lump the cloth of her skirt. At last Alan 
rose to a crouching position, squatting on his 
heels. 

“What shall we do?” she said at last, her 
throat dry. 


290 




THE FIGHT IN THE CANON 


“Wait for them,” Alan answered grimly. 

“Why not at the top of the mountain?” 

“It is better here. They cannot see me until 
they come up over the edge of the rim and I 
may be able to close with them.” 

6 ‘ But they will kill you, my Alan .’ 9 The girl 9 s 
voice ended in a sob. 

For an instant he did not answer. Then, 
stooping, he took her gently in his arms. 

“God help us, dear!” he whispered brokenly. 
“ It 9 s the only way . 9 9 




CHAPTER XXIX 


THE FATE OF A DESPERATE CHANCE 

T HE two men had again turned towards 
the ledge and were advancing leisurely, 
raising their feet from the sticky oil 
like cats caught on fly paper. Over by the 
stream the Mexican was but fifteen yards from 
the foot of the trail when a gasp from Paloma 
made Alan turn. The girl had risen to her 
full height and her trembling hand was pointing 
out across the oil field. From her throat came 
incoherent sounds and she kept moistening her 
lips, struggling to speak. As the man fol¬ 
lowed the direction of her finger, he, too, started, 
his eyes staring. 

Around the tree to which the helpless fore¬ 
man had been tied the rope still coiled. But 
the loops hung limp; the man within was gone. 
A movement over by the western cliff drew 
Alan’s eye. On a flat slab that jutted out into 
the oil Bart was kneeling, like a washerwoman 

292 


THE FATE OF A DESPERATE CHANCE 


by the river’s edge. In one hand he gripped a 
giant cone that had fallen from the great pine 
near the cliff. Around it he had wrapped lay¬ 
ers of dry, gray moss from the live oak over¬ 
head and he was rolling over and over the 
thirsty mass in the surface oil of a pool lying 
just beneath the slab. Suddenly he rose, fum¬ 
bled in his vest and struck a match on his heel. 
A flash of flame and he flung the blazing sop 
far out across the field. In a graceful parabola 
it rose and fell halfway between Eomero and 
his follower. A moment it lay sputtering while 
the tall, gaunt figure bent forward, his fists 
clenched, one knee raised. Then he let out a 
shout that bounded back and forth against the 
canon walls. For, with a seething hiss, the 
light surface oil had caught and a whirling 
spiral of flame went sweeping up the canon. 

At the foreman’s cry the Mexican had 
wheeled and his face went creamy buff. Then, 
like a rabbit before the swoop of a hawk, he 
threw himself forward. At his heels surged 
the ever widening circle of fire, shooting tongues 
of brick red far up into the sky. Five yards 
from the foot of the trail the whirlwind swept 

293 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


over him. Ablaze, he kept bounding into the 
air, his features bulging with pain. Gradually 
his leaps grew lower and lower, like a rubber 
ball bouncing itself out. All at once he rose 
high, threw his arms above his head and, with a 
low, gurgling yell, disappeared in the smoke. 

Fascinated, Paloma stood gazing at the sooty 
billows rolling with a roar up the canon walls. 
As she shuddered and started to turn away, 
Alan seized her by the arm. 

“Look! Your cousin!” he said hoarsely. 

Bomero was standing as though struck to 
stone, his eyes glued on the place where his fol¬ 
lower had disappeared. The flames were 
spreading, widening like ripples on a pool 
where a bass has broken. All at once he seemed 
to realize his own danger and, with a start, 
looked around him. Then, throwing away his 
rifle, he plunged back towards the woods. Im¬ 
mediately he brought up short. Except for a 
narrow strip below the western cliff the canon 
was now a roaring furnace, smudging with 
swelling waves of dirty black the blue skylight 
overhead. Wallowing like a man in a mire, the 
Spaniard started towards this narrow corridor 

294 





THE FATE OF A DESPERATE CHANCE 


to safety. Once he slid full length, then scram¬ 
bled to his feet and staggered on. 

“Hell make it,” Alan burst out, as the 
swarthy figure brought up hard against the 
western wall and with one hand began to grope 
his way along the rock to where Bart was wait¬ 
ing. 

As he spoke, the wind dropped dead and the 
flames, angry at being held back, gathered them- 
selves together and rushed at the struggling 
man. As they broke over his ankles, he gave a 
roar of pain and, half turning, sprang against 
the cliff. Desperately his fingers pawed the 
slippery shale, seeking a fissure. The oil on 
one boot was blazing and for a moment he hung, 
kicking madly. Then, with a grunt of relief, 
he climbed upwards. 

The wind had freshened once more and Alan 
and Paloma moved along to the western corner 
of the ledge where they could see Romero hoist¬ 
ing himself like a huge beetle up the precipitous 
cliff. He was almost on a level with them now, 
not ten yards distant, and his smut-streaked 
face worked convulsively under the pain of the 

295 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


heat below. Once he looked their way and Alan 
felt the hand on his arm tighten. 

“ It’s horrible! ’ ’ he murmured. i 6 Isn’t there 
something we can do to help him?” 

“Let him alone!” the girl’s voice was hard. 
“He would have killed you if he could.” 

But Alan shook his head. 

“Wait here!” he said, starting back for the 
trail. Presently he returned, swinging the rope 
used to bind Paloma. Putting his hands to his 
mouth, he shouted, straining to make his voice 
carry above the dull roar of the fire. Slowly 
the Spaniard turned; then he paused, unde¬ 
cided, his jawbone working back and forth 
under his swarthy skin. Finally, digging his 
shoes into the rock, he reached to catch the 
throw. The rope shot out, hung straight, then 
slapped back against the wall. Repeatedly 
Alan tried to reach the marooned man, gripping 
a bush and stretching far over the seething 
whirlpool. Again and again the rope fell short. 
At last, without a word, the Spaniard faced the 
wall and continued on his painful climb. 

He was evidently trying to reach the ledge 
on which Paloma and Alan stood, working his 

296 




THE FATE OF A DESPERATE CHANCE 


way diagonally across the cliff face. But the 
shale had given way to granite and it was only 
by gripping the tips of his fingers and toes 
into the tiny cracks that he could cling to the 
smooth stone. Painfully, slowly, he had cov¬ 
ered a yard or more when a sliver of rock on 
which his foot was resting slipped and his body, 
freed of its support, shot full length with a jerk 
that almost pulled his arms from their sock¬ 
ets. He swung back and forth, his feet pawing 
desperately up and down the slippery rock; 
then exhausted, he hung still, a low moaning 
coming from his throat like the querulous com¬ 
plaint of a sick child. Twice he struggled to 
push his fingers into a crack further along. 
Each time he dug his bleeding nails into their 
former hold to keep from falling. Then he 
hung quite still. His strength was fast ebbing 
and his fingers gradually straightened until he 
was hanging by the two lower phalanges alone. 
His face was tallowy and his teeth showed like 
a dead rat’s beneath his black mustache. Sud¬ 
denly he gave a low, despairing groan, his fin¬ 
gers relaxed and his tall figure shot straight 
down, his features distorted, his eyes bulging 

297 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


as if some finger within were pushing them from 
their sockets. As he fell, he flattened out back¬ 
ward like a squirrel skin drying on a board. 
Ten yards down his head snapped against a 
spit of rock with a crunch of spattered bone. 
Then his body, the arms waving limp, dove 
headfirst into the flames. 




CHAPTER XXX 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 

A S the Spaniard fell, Alan had rushed 
along the ledge and started to grope his 
way down the trail leading to the oil 
field. A few yards below the rim he sank from 
view in the dense billows of smoke pouring up 
the cliff face. At length he emerged on the 
ledge again, staggering slightly, rubbing his 
eyes. 

“I couldn’t make it,” he gasped chokingly. 
“It was impossible to get halfway down.” 

“Why did you try?” Paloma declared. “He 
was dead when his body struck the cliff.’ ’ 

“It is horrible, horrible,” Alan kept repeat¬ 
ing. “If only, only that rope had reached.” 

“But Alan,” Paloma said earnestly, “we 
should not regret. He tried to kill you and the 
world is not for such as he. Come! ’ ’ she added, 
moving over towards the western wall. “Let 
us see what Bart is doing.” 

299 


THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


Above their heads a crow was circling, caw¬ 
ing raucously. Up from the falls rose a siz¬ 
zling hiss as the water of the stream fell on 
the flaming oil. The wind had freshened and 
the narrow strip beneath the precipice was 
once more clean of smoke. Under the giant 
pine they could see the foreman kneeling, ban¬ 
daging with a red bandanna the eye of the man 
Alan first had shot. Behind him the second 
Mexican lay full length, turning now and then 
from side to side and beating the ground with 
his fists. 

‘ 4 Bart must have waded out and dragged 
them in,” Alan exclaimed in a relieved tone. 
“Thank God, I didn’t kill them.” 

The foreman had finished his task, and as he 
rose he saw the man and the girl on the ledge 
above. 

“ You people had better get out by the shaft,” 
he shouted, putting his hands like a funnel to 
his mouth. “It will take days for this fire to 
burn down enough for you to cross here.” 

“But, Bart, we can’t make it alone,” Alan 
called back. “The chain that opens the door 
through the wall at the top of the shaft is on 

300 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


the inside and you’ll have to ride around to the 
cave, climb up and let us through / 7 

“Righto!” came the answer. “I'll drop 
these greasers at the hut, get a lantern, and 
come for you as quick as I can. But it will be 
a good six hours, ’cause the dark is fallin V’ 

The fire lulled and they could hear the fore¬ 
man growling at the Mexicans as he lifted 
them on their horses. Presently came a long 
drawn out: 

“So long, folks!” 

“Good-by, Bart!” they called in return, and 
arm in arm they turned up the grass-coated 
valley. 

Gradually they left behind the stifling smoke 
that hung like a mirky shroud above the som¬ 
ber canon. Night was beginning to fall. Down 
between the cliffs the sun had vanished and the 
shadows of the evening laid their soft covering 
over all. Starting up the trail to the summit, 
they paused now and then to draw into their 
thirsty lungs great gulps of twilight-sweetened 
air. At an elbow of the spur they stopped and 
stood looking back. The fire was just below 
them, shooting brick-red tongues of flame 

301 




TEE WAKE OF TEE SETTING SUN 


through the smudgy canopy. Between the 
Y-shaped opening of the valley the great plain 
stretched away, sweeping out to the foam- 
fringed blue of the channel. Across its smooth 
green velvet the northern flock was slowly mov¬ 
ing, seeking shelter from the coming night. 

The shadows of the evening were falling 
deeper and in the depths of the eddying stream 
the rocks seemed black and mysterious. Some¬ 
where in the pine a bird was singing to its mate. 
Their arms linked, happy in the touch of each 
other, they followed the tortuous windings 
of the narrow passage up the dome. Far 
below, the peaks were capped with delicate 
rose. But the rifted valleys were black and still 
under the falling night. Slowly they passed 
between the towering cliffs and up over the 
rough-cut steps to the summit. As they moved 
across the open space before the temple and 
seated themselves on the broad parapet of the 
sea wall, the sun was sinking in the west. 
Smoothly the great red ball dipped behind the 
fire-hemmed banks of clouds on the horizon and 
the earth lay soft and warm in the gentle after¬ 
glow. In silence they let their gaze wander out 

302 




THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


across the sweeping expanse of pearl-gray 
ocean. Shoulder to shoulder, the supple sway¬ 
ing of their bodies as they breathed caressed 
their senses. From far below came the boom 
of the breakers and the breeze bore on its bosom 
the soothing, enervating languor of the south¬ 
ern seas. They talked in broken snatches, half- 
childish talk, meaningless except for those who 
hear beneath the senseless words the eternal 
hymn of love and life. 

Gradually the salmon turned to violet, then 
to deepening gray, twilight floated away, and 
far above their heads sank down upon them the 
star-sown blue of a Pacific summer night. All 
at once, out towards the east, a luminous patch 
showed behind the olive-black peaks, their 
jagged, grim outline stood out in rugged relief, 
and quickly, orange and huge, the moon rose 
out of the range. 

“What a splendid old fellow he is to-night / } 
Alan murmured, his voice trembling slightly. 
“He seems so earnest up there, trudging along 
in the wake of the setting sun. And you know, 
dear, that of all the lands and peoples those two 
will look upon before they come to us again they 

303 





THE WAKE OF THE SETTING SUN 


are not going to find a single being quite so full 
of happiness as I.” 

The girl turned to him and her eyes, serious, 
tender, looked full into his own. For a moment 
he gripped her wrists and held her off, search¬ 
ing her face. Then with a stifled cry he kissed 
her full on the lips. There was a silence; then 
he drew back, sipping in his breath between his 
teeth. 

“I love you,” he whispered brokenly. “Tell 
me, my Paloma, that you love me. ’ ’ 

Her closed eyes opened and she stared at him 
as though coming from far away. Then, put¬ 
ting both her arms about his neck, she pulled 
his mouth to hers. And, in the soft moon glow, 
floated up the sea wall the gentle boom of the 
breakers rolling in from the enchanted gardens 
on the other side of the globe. (i) 


THE END 






















NEW NOVELS OF PRIME INTEREST 


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A colorful and dramatic romance with scenes laid 
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